A young Syrian boy cries as his father carries him past Hungarian police after being caught in a surge of migrants attempting to board a train bound for Munich, Germany at the Keleti railway station on September 9 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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The hard lesson for the refugees is that 'there is no Norway,' even in Norway. They will have to learn to censor their dreams: Instead of chasing them in reality, they should focus on changing reality.

A condensed version of this article ran in the November 2015 issue of In These Times.

In her classic study On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed the famous scheme of the five stages of how we react upon learning that we have a terminal illness: denial (one simply refuses to accept the fact: “This can’t be happening, not to me.”); anger (which explodes when we can no longer deny the fact: “How can this happen to me?”); bargaining (the hope we can somehow postpone or diminish the fact: “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”); depression (libidinal disinvestment: “I'm going to die, so why bother with anything?”); acceptance (“I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”). Later, Kübler-Ross applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (joblessness, death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction), and also emphasized that they do not necessarily come in the same order, nor are all five stages experienced by all patients.

Is the reaction of the public opinion and authorities in Western Europe to the flow of refugees from Africa and Middle East also not a similar combination of disparate reactions? There was denial, now diminishing: “It’s not so serious, let’s just ignore it.” There is anger: “Refugees are a threat to our way of life, hiding among them Muslim fundamentalists, they should be stopped at any price!” There is bargaining: “OK, let’s establish quotas and support refugee camps in their own countries!” There is depression: “We are lost, Europe is turning into Europa-stan!” What is lacking is acceptance, which, in this case, would have meant a consistent all-European plan of how to deal with the refugees.

So what to do with hundreds of thousands of desperate people who wait in the north of Africa, escaping from war and hunger, trying to cross the sea and find refuge in Europe?

There are two main answers. Left liberals express their outrage at how Europe is allowing thousands to drown in Mediterranean. Their plea is that Europe should show solidarity by opening its doors widely. Anti-immigrant populists claim we should protect our way of life and let the Africans solve their own problems.

Which solution is better? To paraphrase Stalin, they are both worse. Those who advocate open borders are the greater hypocrites: Secretly, they know very well this will never happen, since it would trigger an instant populist revolt in Europe. They play the Beautiful Soul which feels superior to the corrupted world while secretly participating in it.

The anti-immigrant populist also know very well that, left to themselves, Africans will not succeed in changing their societies. Why not? Because we, North Americans and Western Europeans, are preventing them. It was the European intervention in Libya which threw the country in chaos. It was the U.S. attack on Iraq which created the conditions for the rise of ISIS. The ongoing civil war in the Central African Republic is not just an explosion of ethnic hatred; France and China are fighting for the control of oil resources through their proxies.

But the clearest case of our guilt is today’s Congo, which is again emerging as the African “heart of darkness.” Back in 2001, a UN investigation into the illegal exploitation of natural resources in Congo found that its internal conflicts are mainly about access to, control of, and trade in five key mineral resources: coltan, diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold. Beneath the façade of ethnic warfare, we thus discern the workings of global capitalism. Congo no longer exists as a united state; it is a multiplicity of territories ruled by local warlords controlling their patch of land with an army which, as a rule, includes drugged children. Each of these warlords has business links to a foreign company or corporation exploiting the mining wealth in the region. The irony is that many of these minerals are used in high-tech products such as laptops and cell phones.

Remove the foreign high-tech companies from the equation and the whole narrative of ethnic warfare fueled by old passions falls apart. This is where we should begin if we really want to help the Africans and stop the flow of refugees. The first thing is to recall that most of refugees come from the “failed states”—where public authority is more or less inoperative, at least in large regions—Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Congo, etc. This disintegration of state power is not a local phenomenon but a result of international economy and politics—in some cases, like Libya and Iraq, a direct outcome of Western intervention. It is clear that the rise of these “failed states” is not just an unintended misfortune but also one of the ways the great powers exert their economic colonialism. One should also note that the seeds of the Middle East’s “failed states” are to be sought in the arbitrary borders drawn after World War I by UK and France and thereby creating a series of “artificial” states. By way of uniting Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, ISIS is ultimately bringing together what was torn apart by the colonial masters.

One cannot help noting the fact that some not-too-rich Middle Eastern countries (Turkey, Egypt, Iraq) are much more open to the refugees than the really wealthy ones (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar). Saudi Arabia and Emirates received no refugees, although they border countries in crisis and are culturally much closer to the refugees (who are mostly Muslims) than Europe. Saudi Arabia even returned some Muslim refugees from Somalia. Is this because Saudi Arabia is a fundamentalist theocracy which can tolerate no foreign intruders? Yes, but one should also bear in mind that this same Saudi Arabia is economically fully integrated into the West. From the economic standpoint, are Saudi Arabia and Emirates, states that totally depend on their oil revenues, not pure outposts of Western capital? The international community should put full pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia Kuwait and Qatar to do their duty in accepting a large contingent of the refugees. Furthermore, by way of supporting the anti-Assad rebels, Saudi Arabia is largely responsible for the situation in Syria. And the same holds in different degrees for many other countries—we are all in it.

A new slavery

Another feature shared by these rich countries is the rise of a new slavery. While capitalism legitimizes itself as the economic system that implies and furthers personal freedom (as a condition of market exchange), it generated slavery on its own, as a part of its own dynamics: although slavery became almost extinct at the end of the Middle Ages, it exploded in colonies from early modernity till the American Civil War. And one can risk the hypothesis that today, with the new epoch of global capitalism, a new era of slavery is also arising. Although it is no longer a direct legal status of enslaved persons, slavery acquires a multitude of new forms: millions of immigrant workers in the Saudi peninsula (Emirates, Qatar, etc.) who are de facto deprived of elementary civil rights and freedoms; the total control over millions of workers in Asian sweatshops often directly organized as concentration camps; massive use of forced labor in the exploitation of natural resources in many central African states (Congo, etc.). But we don’t have to look so far. On December 1, 2013, at least seven people died when a Chinese-owned clothing factory in an industrial zone in the Italian town of Prato, 19 kilometers from the center of Florence, burned down, killing workers trapped in an improvised cardboard dormitory built onsite. The accident occurred in the Macrolotto industrial district of the town, known for its garment factories. Thousands more Chinese immigrants were believed to be living in the city illegally, working up to 16 hours per day for a network of wholesalers and workshops turning out cheap clothing.

We thus do not have to look for the miserable life of new slaves far away in the suburbs of Shanghai (or in Dubai and Qatar) and hypocritically criticize China—slavery can be right here, within our house, we just don't see it (or, rather, pretend not to see it). This new de facto apartheid, this systematic explosion of the number of different forms of de facto slavery, is not a deplorable accident but a structural necessity of today's global capitalism.

But are the refugees entering Europe not also offering themselves to become cheap precarious workforce, in many cases at the expense of local workers, who react to this threat by joining anti-immigrant political parties? For most of the refugees, this will be the reality of their dream realized.

The refugees are not just escaping from their war-torn homelands; they are also possessed by a certain dream. We can see again and again on our screens. Refugees in southern Italy make it clear that they don’t want to stay there—they mostly want to live in Scandinavian countries. And what about thousands camping around Calais who are not satisfied with France but are ready to risk their lives to enter the United Kingdom? And what about tens of thousands of refugees in Balkan countries who want to reach Germany at least? They declare this dream as their unconditional right, and demand from European authorities not only proper food and medical care but also the transportation to the place of their choice.

There is something enigmatically utopian in this impossible demand: as if it is the duty of Europe to realize their dream, a dream which, incidentally, is out of reach to most of Europeans. How many South and East Europeans would also not prefer to live in Norway? One can observe here the paradox of utopia: precisely when people find themselves in poverty, distress and danger, and one would expect that they would be satisfied by a minimum of safety and well-being, the absolute utopia explodes. The hard lesson for the refugees is that “there is no Norway,” even in Norway. They will have to learn to censor their dreams: Instead of chasing them in reality, they should focus on changing reality.

A Left taboo

One of the great Left taboos will have to be broken here: the notion that the protection of one’s specific way of life is in itself a proto-Fascist or racist category. If we don’t abandon this notion, we open up the way for the anti-immigrant wave which thrives all around Europe. (Even in Denmark, the anti-immigrant Democratic party for the first time overtook Social-Democrats and became the strongest party in the country.) Addressing concerns of ordinary people about the threats to their specific way of life can be done also from the Left. Bernie Sanders is a living proof of that! The true threat to our communal ways of life are not foreigners but the dynamic of global capitalism: In the United States alone, the economic changes of the last several decades did more to destroy communal life in small cities than all the immigrants together.

The standard Left-liberal reaction to this is, of course, an explosion of arrogant moralism: The moment we give any credence to the “protection of our way of life” motif, we already compromise our position, since we propose a more modest version of what anti-immigrant populists openly advocate. Is this not the story of last decades? Centrist parties reject the open racism of anti-immigrant populists, but they simultaneously profess to “understand the concerns” of ordinary people and enact a more “rational” version of the same politics.

But while this contains a kernel of truth, the moralistic complaints—“Europe lost empathy, it is indifferent towards the suffering of others,” etc.—are merely the obverse of the anti-immigrant brutality. Both stances share the presupposition, which is in no way self-evident, that a defense of one’s own way of life excludes ethical universalism. One should thus avoid getting caught into the liberal game of “how much tolerance can we afford.” Should we tolerate if they prevent their children going to state schools, if they arrange marriages of their children, if they brutalize gays among their ranks? At this level, of course, we are never tolerant enough, or we are always already too tolerant, neglecting the rights of women, etc. The only way to break out of this deadlock is to move beyond mere tolerance or respect of others to a common struggle.

One must thus broaden the perspective: Refugees are the price of global economy. In our global world, commodities circulate freely, but not people: new forms of apartheid are emerging. The topic of porous walls, of the threat of being inundated by foreigners, is strictly immanent to global capitalism, it is an index of what is false about capitalist globalization. While large migrations are a constant feature of human history, their main cause in modern history are colonial expansions: Prior to colonization, the Global South mostly consisted of self-sufficient and relatively isolated local communities. It was colonial occupation and slave trading that threw this way of life off the rails and renewed large-scale migrations.

Europe is not the only place experiencing a wave of immigration. In South Africa, there are over a million refugees from Zimbabwe, who are exposed to attacks from local poor for stealing their jobs. And there will be more, not just because of armed conflicts, but because of new “rogue states,” economic crisis, natural disasters (exacerbated by climate change), man-made disasters, etc. It is now known that, after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, Japanese authorities thought for a moment that the entire Tokyo area—20 millions of people—will have to be evacuated. Where, in this case, should they have gone? Under what conditions? Should they be given a piece of land or just be dispersed around the world? What if northern Siberia becomes more inhabitable and arable, while vast sub-Saharan regions become too dry to support the large populations that live there? How will the exchange of population be organized? When similar things happened in the past, social changes occurred in a wild spontaneous way, with violence and destruction (recall the great migrations at the end of the Roman empire)—such a prospect is catastrophic in today’s conditions, with arms of mass destruction available to many nations.

The main lesson to be learned is therefore that humankind should get ready to live in a more “plastic” and nomadic way: Rapid local and global changes in environment may require unheard-of, large-scale social transformations. One thing is clear: National sovereignty will have to be radically redefined and new levels of global cooperation invented. And what about the immense changes in economy and conservation due to new weather patterns or water and energy shortages? Through what processes of decision will such changes be decided and executed? A lot of taboos will have to be broken here, and a set of complex measures undertaken.

First, Europe will have to reassert its full commitment to provide means for the dignified survival of the refugees. There should be no compromise here: Large migrations are our future, and the only alternative to such commitment is a renewed barbarism (what some call “clash of civilizations”).

Second, as a necessary consequence of this commitment, Europe should organize itself and impose clear rules and regulations. State control of the stream of refugees should be enforced through a vast administrative network encompassing all of the European Union (to prevent local barbarisms like those of the authorities in Hungary or Slovakia). Refugees should be reassured of their safety, but it should also be made clear to them that they have to accept the area of living allocated to them by European authorities, plus they have to respect the laws and social norms of European states: No tolerance of religious, sexist or ethnic violence on any side, no right to impose onto others one’s own way of life or religion, respect of every individual’s freedom to abandon his/her communal customs, etc. If a woman chooses to cover her face, her choice should be respected, but if she chooses not to cover it, her freedom to do so has to be guaranteed. Yes, such a set of rules privileges the Western European way of life, but it is a price for European hospitality. These rules should be clearly stated and enforced, by repressive measures (against foreign fundamentalists as well as against our own anti-immigrant racists) if necessary.

Third, a new type of international interventions will have to be invented: military and economic interventions that avoid neocolonial traps. What about UN forces guaranteeing peace in Libya, Syria or Congo? Since such interventions are closely associated with neocolonialism, extreme safeguards will be needed. The cases of Iraq, Syria and Libya demonstrate how the wrong type of intervention (in Iraq and Libya) as well as non-intervention (in Syria, where, beneath the appearance of non-intervention, external powers from Russia to Saudi Arabia and the U.S.? are fully engaged) end up in the same deadlock.

Fourth, the most difficult and important task is a radical economic change that should abolish social conditions that create refugees. The ultimate cause of refugees is today’s global capitalism itself and its geopolitical games, and if we do not transform it radically, immigrants from Greece and other European countries will soon join African refugees. When I was young, such an organized attempt to regulate commons was called Communism. Maybe we should reinvent it. Maybe, this is, in the long term, our only solution.

Is all this a utopia? Maybe, but if we don’t do it, then we are really lost, and we deserve to be.

Correction: this story initially said that the anti-immigrant Democratic party overtook the Social-Democrats in Sweden when it meant to refer to Denmark. It has been corrected.

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Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, is a senior researcher at the the Institute for Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London. He has also been a visiting professor at more than 10 universities around the world. Žižek is the author of many books, including Living in the End Times, First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously and Trouble in Paradise.

You may be interested in learning who the Sassoons were? They're another trillionaire-trust family that ran ALL the opium from as far back as The Opium Wars and even before that of course. They are married into the Rothschild clan and are also crypto jews. They have a base of operation out of China.You're also likely aware of the Oded Yinon plan - seems you mention the intent in some of your posts.

Posted by WarPony on 2015-11-23 12:47:26

Its a good article I agree with analysis of the problem with global capitalism that must be transformed. But I cant agree with solutions that he's suggesting. His entire theory falls apart in this piece of his article:

it should also be made clear to them that they have to accept the area of living allocated to them by European authorities, plus they have to respect the laws and social norms of European states: No tolerance of religious, sexist or ethnic violence

Europe has been trying to do this for over a decade now and its not working. They have formed parallel societies that are competing with European nation in very predatory way. Its extremely obvious with Muslims but its not limited to them. There are also parallel societies of gypsies, shqiptars and others. They are slowly consuming us alive. What needs to be done is that this process must be stopped by any means necessary if we don't want to be entirely consumed. We have seen it in Kosovo, We can see it happening to whites in South Africa right now. Almost 1% of white population is MURDERED in South Africa every year. Is this what we want for our children?

I consider us Europeans LUCKY for this migrant crisis. Because it has opened our eyes for the problem. Alot of us didn't notice the problem until recently but everyone can see it now. White people are intelligent enough to know that there is only one solution. Parallel societies that are predating on us (e.g. non Muslim Asians arent predatory to us) must be eliminated with any means necessary. If anyone has a better plan than genocide im up for it. But if we dont eliminate the predatory parallel societies they will genocide us.

Posted by Mihilus on 2015-11-07 22:32:09

> "You are an implacable foe of any worker who chooses not to join your favored campaign finance scheme club (i.e. 95% of workers)"

And once again, Richard, you've chosen to lie in the face of what you've actually read:

I've read your comments. You are an implacable foe of any worker who chooses not to join your favored campaign finance scheme club (i.e. 95% of workers)

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-26 14:27:27

So, Richard, you haven't bothered to read the news article which tells you exactly that?

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-26 14:24:57

Ah mr fact-free anti-worker zealout Raven is there again. How tiring.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-26 07:32:09

Nothing wrong with it? Walmart was ashamed enough of the fact to also deceive its customers by mislabeling these 3rd world products "Made in the USA", and it has had to retract these falsehoods under threat of action from the Federal Trade Commission: Walmart removes "Made in USA" logos from website after government inquiry. Notice, "a Consumer Reports survey this year found 80% of Americans prefer to buy Made-in-the-USA products when possible."

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-24 07:25:17

Damn.

Posted by Jonne Kolima on 2015-10-16 18:49:21

Wow. Pretty much opposite what "Zizek" had in hand. Well, in Europe.

Posted by Jonne Kolima on 2015-10-16 18:45:18

Please don´t confuse the Sweden Democrats with only racism. With increasing crime, rape and declining school results. Its just people protecting their own countries good.

Trailer: A person who followed a show, sometimes riding the show trains, who was not on the payroll of that show. Some peddled balloons, others stole merchandise and sold that at bargain prices.

(So it may very well have come from a big store... like a Walmart... or who knows?)

> "... Chinese-built iPads...."

Just 20 hours ago I posted to you that "Wealthy employers... also disagree with unions' politics — because unions favor workers' rights and benefits, which those employers have *koff* upon occasion *koff* rather neglected...." Nowhere did I suggest that Walmart was the sole offender. And now you have pointed out that Apple, a wealthy employer, uses sweatshop labor. So Americans get cheap products, which you consider very nice, but the manufacturing jobs were once again outsourced overseas.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-11 08:55:19

Go look on the shelves of non-Walmart chains and mom-and-pop stores at the same sort of goods. Or even the smallest possible "shops": tiny stands and carts selling stuff around festivals and carnivals. See where the stuff is made. See if there is any difference....

And it's not like you go to Walmart to get Chinese-built iPads, and go the corner shop to get good old American-built iPads.

Singling out Walmart like you keep doing seems more and more pointless.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-11 05:23:48

So much for the "BUY AMERICAN" motto; you've just made it "BUY 3RD WORLD SWEATSHOP".

Alas, if you work for (a) a competitor to Walmart, (b) a supplier to Walmart, or (c) Walmart— just not shopping at Walmart will not ease your woes.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-09 10:44:14

It's a good thing that Walmart can pressure its suppliers to not be greedy and screw people by overpricing things.

If you don't like it, don't go to WalMart. Problem solved. No need at all for your usual solution to everything: the rulers forcing their opinions on everyone at gunpoint.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 10:11:09

"Nice 'apples and oranges'. Walmart is one of countless retailers, not a monopoly."

Just as, early on, and growing bigger, Standard Oil was one of numerous competing oil companies, not a total sole-controller of the resource; even holding 90% of all the oil refined in the U.S., well, with others still out there holding 10%, how could you call Standard Oil a TRUE monopoly?

Yet they had (even before that) the scale to pressure railroads and other suppliers to favor them....

[As Walmart, because of its scale, can and does pressure its suppliers, read the article.]

... not that this necessarily benefited the consumer, unless Standard Oil needed to win a price war at the time.

Once Standard Oil had eliminated competitors... it had "control over prices (and the consequent ability to set prices at levels that would maximize profits). ... This trend went far from unnoticed by the general public. In fact, it led to widespread disgust and revulsion, not only among the many people who had their businesses or jobs wiped out by the ruthless predatory tactics of the trusts, but also by countless others who were affected by the increased costs and reduced levels of service that often resulted from the elimination of competition."

... news reports from outlets such as the The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek described ALEC as an organization that gave corporate interests outsized influence. Resulting public pressure led to a number of legislators and corporations withdrawing from the organization. /.../ ALEC was founded in 1973 in Chicago as the "Conservative Caucus of State Legislators"....

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-09 08:10:22

Nothing wrong with Walmart not wanting to deal with suppliers who screw Walmart and their customers by overcharging.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 08:00:44

"It is illegal to use dues money, but it is done all the time."

In which case a whistle-blower exposing those facts to a DA might seek a reward....

"A complete truth from me. as union dues are stolen from workers and use for politics."

Based on your say-so alone? Here's the Congressional Research Service article that truthrevolt page you were on linked to; try finding in it any factual support for your claim. Happy hunting....

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-09 07:41:25

A complete truth from me. as union dues are stolen from workers and use for politics.

Thanks for linking to an opinion by a hardcore antiworker advocate.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 07:14:33

Most companies are clobbered by overtaxation, which forces companies to fire workers, raise prices, and offshore.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 07:13:45

And you link to a fact-free editorial from hardline partisans...

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 07:13:01

It is illegal to use dues money, but it is done all the time.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-09 07:12:21

"But they take dues money from ALL the workers, even those opposed to it, forcefully, to use on political campaigns."

Another flat lie by Richard Rahl, since only voluntary political contributions, not dues money, can be used for union political advocacy.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-08 23:06:24

"And we have a form of the golden rule: those making the rules getting the gold."

Thus, learn about the corporate model-law writing group that sends these model-laws to (predominantly Republican) legislators in Washington DC and state capitols all over the country: the "American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC)

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-08 23:03:04

"... not the private businesses, which, like us (no matter how large) are getting clobbered by punitive tax rates and policies."

"I am more than fine with workers choosing to join unions in environments (right to work) where this decisions is in the hands of the workers, and not forced."

If there was no union, where would the choice be?

If there IS a union present, why is it there? Gosh, because the workers voted for it, which is how any group of workers becomes unionized (look it up!) — the decision was in their hands to begin with, rather like a certain United nation you live in — choosing this means to protect their collective interests, just as We the People chose another "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...."

But now employers are trying to de-fund unions — and will you pretend there's "no pressure" from employers on employees to withhold union contributions, which would be really odd after those employers have gone to all this effort to sever union dues from paycheck deductions in the first place?

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 16:00:33

Yes, I admit it. I am more than fine with workers choosing to join unions in environments (right to work) where this decisions is in the hands of the workers, and not forced.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 14:14:51

"Well, maybe I am not so neutral."

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to hear you admit this.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 14:05:54

"Richard, you consistently want to subtract membership and funding from unions..."

Not at all.

1) It doesn't matter to me if membership in unions grows or shrinks. Well, maybe I am not so neutral. Union membership has been growing in right-to-work Indiana:

2) I would not subtract one penny from union funding that workers want to got to unions. Again, I would not interfere with what a worker would choose in regards to giving money to unions.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 13:50:18

Richard, you consistently want to subtract membership and funding from unions so that they are weaker and can do less to represent or protect their membership against abusive employers — during the fight over pay or benefits or workplace safety or the shipping of jobs out of state or overseas — so the employers can safely get away with more and more and more....

There is nothing in these "right-to-work" laws (de-funding unions) that actually protects those jobs from disappearing, or having their wages or benefits cut, or workplace safety reduced; they are placed entirely at the employers' (nonexistent) mercy once the unions have been pushed out.

The unions were the workers' only counterbalance to the employers, which is exactly why the employers wanted the unions gone. Yet you portray the unions as the workers' "enemy"; how odd, considering the unions could never have been there without the workers having voted them in.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 13:21:27

"You surely had to do a lot of 'forum shopping' to find causes for the economic collapse other than the real cause..."

Wow, Richard, you really do never look at the links I proffer, like top of the Google heap, Wikipedia, which in turn cites the most neutral and impartial sources it can find, in that case (as I mentioned) the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 13:00:18

"you advocate policies that tilt the balance toward employers"

Never. Read any right-to-work law. These laws add protection for employees from being fired for additional reasons. There is nothing in them that adds for EMPLOYERS.

"which might could lead one or more of your readers to doubt your sincerity and honesty somewhat"

I am referring to actual right-to-work laws (which I have linked to before) . Not your imaginary perception of them in which you consistently add things that are not there.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 12:49:39

"Despite your resistance against tilting the balance of power toward workers..."

There's the problem: you advocate policies that tilt the balance toward employers, and result in lower worker wages and worse worker benefits due to weaker worker negotiating conditions because of de-funded labor unions — and all this you call "tilting the balance of power toward workers" — which might could lead one or more of your readers to doubt your sincerity and honesty somewhat, Richard, wouldn't that just be a shame?

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 12:42:47

You surely had to do a lot of "forum shopping" to find causes for the economic collapse other than the real cause of the government meddling in the mortgage market. You engage in a sort of knee-jerk defense of authority.

Here, from a left wing source (to deal with your illogical obsession with "left wing", "right wing", about the origins of the problem also.

No "shopping" involved. I've known of this since just about when it came out, and this realistic account is quite well known. The writer is from the hard-left "Nation" magazine.

Of course corporations, such as banks, are capable of doing, and doing plenty wrong. Cuomo's recipe for financial apocalypse (an entirely unwarranted government intervention), instead of encouraging banks to behave properly, went all out to encourage them to do very risky things, and to make money from doing so. A recipe for disaster that many warned against. And many, such as Barney Frank, liked what this recipe was cooking, and acted like a driver mashing the accelerator instead of the brake as the car headed for the brick wall.

Before the crash, Barney Frank said, quoted in the New York Times, "''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

It's time for you to let go of the blind partisanship, and look at matters from a more pragmatic and real point of view.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 12:39:55

You're quoting an "Opposing view" by Peter J. Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank based in Washington, DC. Like you, it would of course prefer to blame government for all problems, as a foregone conclusion... which makes asking it for the causes of calamities rather a case of political forum shopping.

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 12:25:20

So, first you said "Slavery existed through intrusive regulation" (though it existed by main force before and without any regulatory or legislative bodies, and still exists despite legislation against it).

Now that I've pointed out it was historically "Emancipation" that "existed through intrusive regulation", you would like to claim the "protected the rights of the people" mantle for the Orwellian-named (à la "Clear Skies" & "Healthy Forests") "Right to Work" law — as if RTW actually gave anyone an actual right to work, rather than giving anti-union forces a way to de-fund and thus kill unions, leaving workers at the complete and helpless (and nonexistent) mercy of their employers... which is part of why workers earn 3.2% less in RTW states than in non-RTW states.

"Efforts to blame the banks for the financial crisis are failing because they are not supported by data. The key fact is that, by 2008, before the crisis, half of the 54 million mortgages in the U.S. financial system were subprime and other low-quality mortgages."

The collapse would mostly likely had not happened at all if the government had stayed out of the housing market, and banks were not encouraged/forced to make bad loans which were backed up by the government.

Without the ill-intended "Community Reinvestment Act" and the bad policies that followed from it, banks would have been risking their own money, without government to back it up. Left to their own devices, they would have been a LOT more careful. Even with the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

The "Community Reinvestment Act" was an entirely unwarranted and disastrous intervention in the mortgage market.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 08:58:01

Emancipation protected the rights of the people, silly. Just like right to work does.

Right to work is very "loving", so to speak.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-02 07:03:24

Great. Despite your resistance against tilting the balance of power toward workers, it looks like you now support right to work.

No unions forcing people to give them money except for the reasons you just gave. I am fine with that.

... from which it follows, (1) only a court, not a thug, can garnish anyone's wages; (2) no-one's going to owe money to a union unless they chose to enter into such a debt, for instance having monthly dues withdrawn from their paycheck, or perhaps damaging union property, like throwing a brick through the union office window. Which was it in your case, Richard?

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 02:11:27

Feel free to study the actual history....

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-02 00:31:57

> "The crash was due to OVER-REGULATED banking."

Crashes, plural, Richard; read about the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s for initial background (where deregulation is distinctly listed as the first, though not the only, cause). Republicans keep deregulating, and the same results keep recurring, fraud notably among them.

As for the crash toward the end of George W. Bush's term, see Financial crisis of 2007–08, which, please note, is not blamed on "over-regulated banking" but rather:

"widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision," "dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management at many systemically important financial institutions," "a combination of excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack of transparency" by financial institutions, ill preparation and inconsistent action by government that "added to the uncertainty and panic," a "systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics," "collapsing mortgage-lending standards and the mortgage securitization pipeline," deregulation of over-the-counter derivatives, especially credit default swaps, and "the failures of credit rating agencies" to correctly price risk. [— per the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.]

Nothing I've said has been trolly in the slightest. I asked you very simple questions and (I felt) they were reasonably worded and to the point.

If you would like to ignore the questions then just go ahead and say it outright: "I don't want to answer the questions or respond bc I am stumped or I don't want to." Otherwise, you're simply fading away like every other poster I encounter of your type. When the convo gets a bit deeper and you can't rely on your duckspeak of cliches and single word responses "he's a lib, they're terrorists, that's a communist statement," this is always what happens: you drift away as if the convo isn't "worth your time," or make an excuse like "I don't debate with Marxist rhetoric."

You didn't explain 1) which of my comments was specifically Marxist, 2) WHICH marxist concepts am I apparently using and 3) why are those comments "irrelevant"?

That's because you have no idea what a Marxist concept even looks like, because clearly you've never read Marx.

Instead, you use the term "Marxist" the same way every cowboy in America uses the term "liberal": in your mind it simply means "bad, evil, wrong." Yet, you couldn't even describe what it is your talking about!

So once again we are back at the original ignorance of the most basic questions which you refuse to even consider. If you really wanted a discussion you would use your best wit to again answer these 3 questions which I will repeat:

1) Who guarantees your property rights? I.e. who makes sure your property remains within your family/whomever you will it to?2) In what way is slavery not part of America's capitalist history when they were integral to American cotton and tobacco industry, and in fact according to some economic studies, the value of slaves in 1860 was equivalent to 10 trillion dollars (that's 70% of today's GDP for the US). Here is one such study:http://www.measuringworth.com/...Even if we don't trust these numbers, we can easily say the value of slaves in 1860 was AT LEAST 30% of modern GDP.This of course makes a mockery of your argument that "American slavery is not related to capitalism."3) If the "market" determined the value of labor, then why is the Mexican immigrant paid less than his US citizen counterpart? In other words, if the market only judges based on output, then how do you explain the difference in wages? What is happening to the Mexican immigrant's labor value that he should not receive the same wage for the same product?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-10-01 10:04:35

An "intrusion" which really protected the rights of people. Just like a federal Right-to-work law would protect paychecks and stop union thugs from garnishing wages to pay for campaign schemes.

The emancipation proclamation and right to work are great ideas for related reasons.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-10-01 05:17:28

The crash was due to OVER-REGULATED banking. Fannie and Freddie (two Federal agencies) intervened in the free market and forced banks to make risky loans to those who didn't deserve to have them.

Thanks for mention of Bhopal.... one of the hugest examples of a private, corporate sector massacre... 16,000 deaths from out-of-control private industry... all the while hundreds of thousands or millions are being killed by out of control socialist, etc. governments.

Oh, but at least he didn't force them to give $$$ to unions; in that respect they were "free"; on the other hand they had no union representatives to speak on their behalf or in their defense, and were not allowed any form of collective bargaining... gosh, this was the ultimate outcome in "Right-to-Work" states, wasn't it?

Posted by Raven on 2015-10-01 00:55:34

"I disagree with the Patriot Act. Bush should not have passed it. Obama, when given the chance, should have let it expire...."

For a wonder and a rarity, we completely agree agree on something, as far as it goes.

But once large and powerful private businesses are free of government supervision, history shows we do indeed have reason to be wary of them — threefold proof in the crashes of the deregulated banking, S&L, and Wall Street industries; the leaks and explosions of unregulated chemical plants and storage tanks like the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal (est. 16,000+ deaths) or the sundry oil train car explosions. (Wisconsin has one, 1, rail inspector for the entire state — is that too much government spending?)

Posted by Raven on 2015-09-30 23:56:49

"Slavery existed through intrusive regulation."

Slavery within the individual US states existed, under their own state laws, UNTIL the "intrusive" Presidential Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the "intrusive" 13th and 14th Amendments to the federal Constitution.

Posted by Raven on 2015-09-30 23:04:59

Which reference to Marxist concepts? And specifically what about those Marxist concepts do you disagree with?

You claimed "the market" determines the value of labor, but did not respond to my basic question: if the market determines the value of labor, why does a Mexican immigrant get paid less for doing the same work as a US citizen?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-30 10:27:19

I gave you 3 straight forward questions. Totally reasonable and totally to the point. You can choose to answer them or ignore the fundamental issues.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 22:27:02

The irrelevant references to Marxist ideas make your side the weaker one, sorry.

"Please come again and I will continue to embarrass your unsubstantial arguments and comments"

I will refuse to be embarassed by your insisting on greed, and the super weak argument that no worker should be paid the value of the work, but instead by paid from an infinite magic amount of money each employer has just waiting to shower it in unearned gifts.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 21:11:47

Yes, as I figured. This is how these discussions always end: with the weaker side slipping away due to some useless aside.

I asked you 3 very straight forward questions that have absolutely nothing to do with "religion.".

You refused to answer because, well, simply you don't have any arguments and you never really wanted a discussion.

Please come again and I will continue to embarrass your unsubstantial arguments and comments. So much so that you will again fade away when asked some VERY simple, and very straight forward questions. Instead, you fade away by claiming I am some religious zealot but I will repeat the questions again and your ignorance will surely be repeated.

1) Who guarantees your property rights? I.e. who makes sure your property remains within your family/whomever you will it to?

2) In what way is slavery not part of America's capitalist history when they were integral to American cotton and tobacco industry, and in fact according to some economic studies, the value of slaves in 1860 was equivalent to 10 trillion dollars (that's 70% of today's GDP for the US). Here is one such study:

Even if we don't trust these numbers, we can easily say the value of slaves in 1860 was AT LEAST 30% of modern GDP.This of course makes a mockery of your argument that "American slavery is not related to capitalism."

3) If the "market" determined the value of labor, then why is the Mexican immigrant paid less than his US citizen counterpart? In other words, if the market only judges based on output, then how do you explain the difference in wages? What is happening to the Mexican immigrant's labor value that he should not receive the same wage for the same product?

None of these questions are necessarily "Marxist" and neither are any of my sources. These aresimple economic questions that you can't answer.

Good day and please do come again with your weak sauce and I will continue to dissect it bit by bit.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 21:06:02

With references to concepts found in Marxism and not in anything in how the world works, you have proven yourself a man of faith. I won't argue religion with you.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 20:40:20

Care to answer my 3 questions or would you like to continue to evade and dodge around the issues?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 19:00:11

You have continued to evade the most fundamental questions so I will list them again for you to consider (and ignore).

1) Who guarantees your property rights? I.e. who makes sure your property remains within your family/whomever you will it to?

2) In what way is slavery not part of America's capitalist history when they were integral to American cotton and tobacco industry, and in fact according to some economic studies, the value of slaves in 1860 was equivalent to 10 trillion dollars (that's 70% of today's GDP for the US). Here is one such study:

Even if we don't trust these numbers, we can easily say the value of slaves in 1860 was AT LEAST 30% of modern GDP.

This of course makes a mockery of your argument that "American slavery is not related to capitalism."

3) If the "market" determined the value of labor, then why is the Mexican immigrant paid less than his US citizen counterpart? In other words, if the market only judges based on output, then how do you explain the difference in wages? What is happening to the Mexican immigrant's labor value that he should not receive the same wage for the sameproduct?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 17:06:14

Capitalism is irrelevant to American slavery? Please explain how millions of free laborers are irrelevant to the products they produced, to the market they enabled...

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 16:23:25

Capitalism is irrelevant to this particular issue. Because we are in the real world with real history. Not living in a Marxist fairytale.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 16:09:37

So why are illegal immigrants paid so little for the same jobs they complete?

The market, I thought, determined the value according to the work completed, NOT according to who is completing the work?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 16:06:17

You're not alive, you can no longer be plundered.

So you think that there should be an authority to make sure your estate remains in yoour family (or whomever you willed it to)?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 16:02:53

Capitalism is irrelevant when discussing the most valuable asset in pre-civil war America?

That's like saying the Chinese work force is irrelevant to modern Chinese economics. That'sjust brilliant. The motor is irrelevant to the car, the wings are irrelevant to the plane. Lol

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 16:01:43

The market. No one else has any idea.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 15:59:36

Who defines the "value of it"? The market or the employer?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 15:58:15

The government would then steal my house through the liberals' beloved death tax. Greedy ghouls plundering me after my demise.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 15:55:39

And what if the person trying to steal your home shoots you first? Does that mean he owns your home?

In other words, who protects your ownership even after you're dead?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 15:51:53

You own your labor if you perform it and get paid for the value of it.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 15:36:47

Capitalism is irrelevant in this matter.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 15:36:15

My two friends... Smith and Wesson.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 15:35:41

But back to the point: when someone comes knocking at your door and tries to steal your stuff, who guarantees your rights to your property?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 13:37:39

What was the interest of the southern states if not to maintain slavery in order to maintain their capitalist interests?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 13:32:34

Thanks for proving your ignorance with myths about the "military industrial complex" also.

Defense is a legitimate function of government. The rulers seizing control of healthcare ("single payer") is not.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 13:27:41

Strong enough to battle the government of some states which was out of control. Not "Capitalist interests"

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 13:25:20

You don't own your labor unless you belong to a nation state, unless you have citizenship...get it? The stage guarantees your rights, not the ghost of the free market.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 13:23:19

You don't agree because you like a lot of fascism is all.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 13:23:00

Africans starving? The largest famine in ages was directly caused by socialist intervention.

From my point of view you polarize. What do you think is authoritarian?

My imagination goes further than an evil iron fist. I don't look at horror-films, thats too abstract for me, I live with warm-blooded-breathing-people near by - and I try to use my given time to move something forward. As I learned, live is not about one or zero. Just death and illusions are.

To be serious: an oeconomic-minded initiative is interested in oeconomic success. Thats fine in it self. But it does not include - for example - health-care or invironmental care or legal care.

Therefor governments are needed, to adjust rules and to protect the citizens from exaggerations. Maybe, we have different culutal backgrounds in US and in Europe.

The german fascim was payed and ruled by the big companies. Same with the military-industial complex in US.Are you kidding me when you say "free markets"? What is free with this markets? The african starving?

Posted by Kai on 2015-09-29 12:09:38

Right, the slaves freed themselves via capitalism too huh?

No it took a nation to do that, a state strong enough to battle capitalist interests.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 11:52:43

Sorry, I don'agree with your use of the word "fascistic". You use it as a hammer, not as an argument.

fascism - as I learned it - meens "to be tied" by inscrutable sydicates and groups of interest, by ideologies, with no legal choice or alternative. This choice we have by governments and in thinking and speaking different and free. To be tied in ideologies - non recognized - and running in allways the same wheel of thoughts, maybe is not far away from knowing no alternatives.

Posted by Kai on 2015-09-29 11:47:48

To make a clearer point: explain to me how you would prove to me that you "own" your house? What if I walked into your house and said "I own this now, prove to me you own it."

You would call the police or the state correct?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 11:47:06

In what way? Explain to me what it means, what actions "anyone" can take to prove that he/she owns his/her labor?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 11:38:09

"Cotton was the leading American export from 1803 to 1837"

What happened during industrialization? What industry dominated American industry? TEXTILES.

Dude you are so delusional its down right embarassing. Go back and check your numbers, because prior to 1860 the American economy was sustained by slavery.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 11:16:57

Slavery existed through intrusive regulation.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 11:01:30

It is super silly of you to assert that you don't own your labor unless you belong to a campaign fundraising scheme. Totally illogical.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 11:00:54

Striking is just quitting your job. Unions steal from your paycheck which means you own less of your labor.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:58:24

You are making stuff up. Check again American economic growth over centuries. I gave the chart. The country crawled along and did not grow to prominence until well after slavery was abolished

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:57:42

He owns it the same as anyone.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:55:54

I just asked you: in what way does he own is labor?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:51:20

It's a myth that the US tobacco and cotton industry wasn't built by slaves?

Jesus what world are you living in. Your graph shows the results of industrialization; naturally the economic growth will not match that of an agricultural society.

Describe then what it means to own your labor? If you cannot 1) negotiate and 2) strike within a union?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:42:37

Ask Ford. He did it, so have many others. Without crony capitalism.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:40:12

None of what you name negates him owning his labor.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:39:30

Slavery has existed and thrived within capitalism. Only through tough political and economic regulation has slavery been somewhat abolished. After all, who built the greatest capitalistnation of them all? Slaves.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:38:52

In what way does he own is labor?

He cannot negotiate, he will be deported.

He has no labor union, he's not a citizen.

He must work the hours given to him and at the price offered by the employer. He owns nothing.

In what way does he "own" his labor?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:35:18

How do you "get something good" to attract capital?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:32:40

Your view is quite authoritarian. The alternative to the invisible hand of the market is the visible iron fist of the dictator controlling a central command economy.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:24:49

It was the forerunners of communists for sure. When the Soviets completely seized control of Vietnam in the late 1970s, they shipped hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese slaves to Siberia to work... just one of the ways the socialists/communists are the heirs to the slave traders.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:21:48

The Mexican in your example does.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:19:41

Slavery is not inherent to capitalism. .. the system where people have the most control over their lives and labor.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:18:48

If you have something g good, you will attract capital.

Your crony capitalism is not necessary.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:16:30

How do you start a company with no capital? Lol

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 10:12:53

Check into how Henry Ford started out. The US auto industry was less advanced than in Europe... decades behind, in fact. Yet ... in an environment of low (and plummeting) tariffs, he made a better product just about from scratch, and attracted local investors.

Ford was good at what he did, so he wasn't one to fall back on the unfair advantage of tariffs to cover for poor performance.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 10:05:21

So now your argument is that businesses cannot start up unless they have income from already produced products....

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 09:51:03

How does this happen? If an entire nation has subordinate technology and cannot produce at 1) the same efficiency and 2) the same cost, then HOW do they turn a profit?

Please respond in economic terms since this is the argument you made. Namely that countries don't need taxation and business can simply "develop faster" out of thin air. HOW DO THEY DEVELO FASTER WITH NO INCOME?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 09:41:56

And yes it is really just a form of crony capitalism.

There are many other problems with tariffs besides the first and obvious one that they place a financial burden on purchasers of anything in this sector... which, like a sales tax, clobber the poor the most.

Are the Forbes points perfect? Non but this shows that there are more sides than the crony capitalist side of the necessity of tariffs.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 09:33:50

It happens all the time without businesses being rewarded for not being up to snuff.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-29 09:27:17

"How" is my question. How would they simply "develop better industries sooner" when their foreign competition provided BOTH superior products and severely lower prices.

For someone who talks a big economic game, you sure seem to be confused about the most basic principles. You cannot simply "develop" without cash flow. So once again, HOW would they have competed?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-29 09:21:44

They would have developed better industries sooner, instead of weak inferior ones.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 21:04:38

Rewarding "developing slow' won't do it.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 20:47:13

How are you going to develop faster when nobody will buy your product because it costs 5 times as much as the foreign competitor?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 19:05:39

Or, just developed them faster and better.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 18:44:56

The entire nation was an infant, that's the point. American industries couldn't compete in any sense really. Without tarrifs they simply wouldn't have developed certain industries at all.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 17:52:26

Yes, for reasons including that it punished Americans for choosing the best products, and kept the "infants" in the crib... they didn't have to try as hard.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 17:42:50

It was a bad idea to protect infant US industries from elaborate, efficient English ones which could produce at twice the speed and half the cost?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 17:22:19

Yes, and women couldn't vote, too.Lots of bad ideas then.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 17:16:59

Did the US use tarrifs toprotect national markets when it was a young, unorganized economy?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 17:14:22

Tariffs are a way by the rulers out of ill conceived ideas to punish the people in a country for making their own informed economic decisions. Sometimes they are used as "protectionism" to protect those who are lousy at their jobs (i.e. Detroit auto workers working drunk on the line making shoddy cars) from fair competition from those who are actually good at something.

They are a form of tax.

Congress has the power to invoke tariffs. Just like they do with war. However, probably everyone is better off if Congress does neither.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 17:02:15

Do you know what the purpose of tarrifs are?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:59:46

"That NAFTA was good forwhom? Surely not Mexico."

Your statement which you repeated over and over didn't contain any link of causality.

I have read many studies saying that NAFTA was bad for both countries. And an equal number saying it was good. And this includes when I weed out the wild-eyed hard left reports, and those from the Chamber and business interests. I even recall one interesting one showing the decline of US manufacturing, going back decades before NAFTA. And this decline leveled out after NAFTA was passed. A causality? It would be a mistake of me to assume that. just like yours is. But interesting.

" After all, why would Clinton immediately bulk up the border after initiating NAFTA?"

There have been calls to "bulk up the border" for decades. Checking the charts on immigration trends, Mexicans kept coming during his administration as before, and as after.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:56:37

By the way, I know many Mexican factory workers who benefit from NAFTA, and a (roughly) equal number of Americans on the northern side of the border who work with them... including exports to Mexico. Get rid of NAFTA = getting rid of all their jobs.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:52:09

It's eye opening to look back at the growth of the security state complex and related privacy intrusions going back many decades, and step back from partisan considerations and see how it gets incrementally worse with every President (with perhaps one exception). The Patriot Act itself seems hardly radical when you look at the apparatus set up by Clinton's predecessors, and strengthened by Clinton himself. And that is not a defense of the Patriot Act.

Not picking on Clinton, just using him as one recent example. Ever hear of Carnivore?

Correct. Because it is actually them exercising the same First Amendment rights we all have.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:47:17

Correct, they are unrelated. But well noted is your wish that Mexicans pay a lot more for food and be denied the choice of the best agriculture products available to them in an area that includes most of North America.

They show immigration since 1950 from Mexico. The most notable upturn took place in the mid 1960s. See Figure 1.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:46:06

Well now it sounds like we are on the same page although we would skin this cat in completely different ways.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:44:21

To refer to another one of your comments. You are more likely to be taken out by one of Obama's drones (and not under the wishes of a moneyed private corporation) than you are to be taken out by a Wal*Mart drone.

And the federal government can send people to come threaten to kill you for refusing to participate in Obamacare (which is what happens to tax resisters who keep disobeying courts and cops). There is no private insurance company willing or capable of doing that to anyone who refuses to do business with it.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:41:33

Yes, these are two "unlinked" events: NAFTA which pit Mexican subsistence farming against heavily subsidized US farming, and the endless stream of Mexican immigrants in the following decades stemming from lack of economic growth and the inability to compete in agricultural matkets.

Yes, these are clearly unrelated.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:40:45

I disagree with the Patriot Act. Bush should not have passed it. Obama. when given the chance, should have let it expire rather than actively renew it (completely making it his own) and make it worse. Good points on Drones too.

(Also, if you look prior to Bush, Clinton made intrusive security worse than GWHB, who made it worse than Reagan etc etc etc... if you look at the history of this you will see a path of growing arrogance by Washington, and erosion of privacy, going back beyond WW2, getting worse with every President except maybe Carter).

All of these are reasons why we must be the MOST wary about the federal government. not the private businesses, which, like us (no matter how large) are getting clobbered by punitive tax rates and policies.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:39:14

Billionaires funding of politicians is a "non-existent power structure"?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:35:31

"Indeed any 12 year old should know that money rules this country and any remedial CC student already does know it"

I apologize. You are correct on this, when we frame in terms of the massive overtaxation the rulers levy against the people. In this, money rules. And we have a form of the golden rule: those making the rules getting the gold.

We need to significantly lower taxes, and lower the greed ("money rules") of the government. Re-instill public service, instead of "how long can I have my hand in the cookie jar without getting caught".

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:35:03

I remember distinctly your two statements, and the baseless assumption of causality between them.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:32:08

Well initially it was George W Bush, the Patriot act opened the gateway. Now it is Obama doing more than anyone could imagine: bombing people without due justice and all that.

What's your point?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:31:36

I did. because you refer to non-existent power structures and threats.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:28:59

Yes just drift off this topic bc you have nothing to respond with. NAFTA will remain a "baseless conspiracy theory" despite the facts to the contrary.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:28:40

Read the Bill of Rights. Think of the instances when these are infringed.... examples the pre "Citizens United" situation when making a film critical of a sitting US senator was a crime. Look at the Second Amendment. So many restrictions on this....Remember who is removing these rights. Or is trying to.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:28:29

Yes lots of name calling, I see this often. Notice how you never actually say HOW my sentence is "stupid, ignorant."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:24:26

Who should I be fearing? Please enlighten me.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:23:43

"But it is my business who our government is working for. And they are working for whoever had the most cash."

The first sentence makes sense. The second one proves your stupidity and ignorance.

" Of course a labor union built of millions of workers is going to spend a lot: they represent millions of workers!"

Wow. That is a false statement. Each labor union represents only some of the workers in it. But they take dues money from ALL the workers, even those opposed to it, forcefully, to use on political campaigns. Say what you will about the Koch Bros, but they use only money which they earn and have a right to use.

"It's funny how you gloss over the point "yah sure they might change opinions.""

Nothing glossed over. This is a Constitutional right.

" you want the guys with the most cash to have the most say."

Not at all. I want the people's rights protected.

"That's a fine perspective but I assure you we have plenty of man power on the other side and Bernie may have steam enough just to win it. If not, the fight will not end, history is open."

True. Socialists have killed most of a hundred million. While society will be much better off when we eradicate socialism, I am sure it will cause many more rivers of blood in the future. Because people like you fear the wrong people.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:22:26

But it is my business who our government is working for. And they are working for whoever had the most cash.

What you were looking atwas all time biggest spenders for federal lobbying. Of course a labor union built of millions of workers is going to spend a lot: they represent millions of workers!

What's more bothersome is an "interest" group consisting of 4 hugely rich donors. They are the ones with ridiculous sway, they are the ones who's voiceis "over-heard."

It's funny how you gloss over the point "yah sure they might change opinions." No it's not a maybe, when someone hands you loads of cash and puts you in office you do what they tell you. If that is the type of government you want then at least be honest about it: you want the guys with the most cash to have the most say.

That's a fine perspective but I assure you we have plenty of man power on the other side and Bernie may have steam enough just to win it. If not, the fight will not end, history is open.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 16:12:33

So? I don't care however. It is not my business (or anyone's, really) what is in someone's wallet or bank account. I am not jealous or greedy.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 16:02:38

Who are you saying is getting richer? I'm quite confused. From the numbers it would seem that those with money continue to accrue it.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 15:59:47

"Oh yes and do continue with the condescending remarks they really add to your argument."

I see the names, phone numbers, and addresses of those who rule in the US every time I read a newspaper. I see them printed in the editorial section. Sorry for the condescension of assuming you read newspapers.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 15:57:37

"Indeed any 12 year old should know that money rules this country"

Such a child would be a product of the NEA-ruined public schools, for knowing what is not true.

"After all, why are their tuition fees so high? Their parents paid a considerably smaller amount when they went to school. Hmm something has changed."

Yes. Rapacious unions have ruined universities as with public education... government "workers" paid far more than their fair share. A problem of the ruling elites getting richer and fatter and more powerful.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 15:54:26

I give up because you asked a real stupid question. Do some research and come back.

"The facts on the ground are not hard to interpret: billions of dollars flood elections and for a very simple reason: it's a sure fire investment. Very little risk, guaranteed return."

And the top spenders (from OpenSecrets) are not corporations, but instead are labor unions using stolen money. However, it must be realized that the money is spent not to bribe anyone, but to SPEAK OUT. The Constitutional freedom to express oneself on the issues of the day.

Does it get a "return" by convincing people ? It does, sometimes. But that is the way the First Amendment is supposed to work. The right to speak out. There's no clause in it that says "if when someone speaks out and it gets someone to change their mind, it is bad!!!!"

Who rules, mr "Failed Civics"? Obama, his administration, Congress, and the Judiciary. They have way too much power now, trampling rights, sapping half of the nation's GDP, robbing so much from the people. And this has nothing to do with individuals in businesses speaking out on issues, and everything to do with those in power trying to keep and expand their power over the years.

Business are crushed by the actual rulers: the tax money paid significantly dwarfs any corporate welfare paid out, and the tax on business is actually higher than in any other countries. So, what return do the rich get on this "investment" of spending on elections? Not a lot. A few companies like GE pay no taxes. But overall companies are crushed by taxes. And rich individuals pay the lion's share of taxes.

If corporations and rich really pulled the strings, there'd be very little taxes on them.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 15:51:59

Oh yes and do continue with the condescending remarks they really add to your argument.

Indeed any 12 year old should know that money rules this country and any remedial CC student already does know it. After all, why are their tuition fees so high? Their parents paid a considerably smaller amount when they went to school. Hmm something has changed.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 15:48:19

Yes of course you give upbecause you simply don't want a real discussion.

The facts on the ground are not hard to interpret: billions of dollars flood elections and for a very simple reason: it's a sure fire investment. Very little risk, guaranteed return.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 15:40:14

If you have no idea who rules in the US, I can direct you to a remedial course at a community college.

Sorry, I give up. I had no idea this was Romper Room here.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 15:33:37

Who are those rulers? What are their interests, their "wills"? Surely not the billions that put them in office?

I mean why in the world would a savvy billionaire put his money into a politician? Surely not to benefit financially!

Dude this couldn't be any clearer, not sure why this is so confusing to you.

Money runs government, it has for a very long time.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 15:29:03

So what do you have to say about these verifiable facts? That NAFTA was good forwhom? Surely not Mexico. After all, why would Clinton immediately bulk up the border after initiating NAFTA?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 15:25:25

No, I just sent you an article which shows the US got plenty of contracts and actually didn't want the risk that China and Russia took on. They got exactly what they wanted.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 12:06:52

So you run away from your first claim. ....

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:45:38

Well that's misleading, especially since all of the contracting work for government paid rebuilding projects went to mostly US companies and also ...

It doesn't matter who "owns the oil," as US companies are already heavily embedded in the extraction process. Come on bud you really think the US didn't come out on top in that deal? Lol get a grip.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 11:41:52

Umm as I stated, the economic growth numbers in that statement are no opinions, they are verifiable recorded facts. You can take out all of the authors words and leave with "Mexico had slowest growth rate since 1930" and "Mexico grew slower than US and Canada" and "Mexico grew slower than every Latin American country."

Those are all simple fact based statements, they are not opinions. Deal with them.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 11:16:59

Fine, if you are referring to facts. But here we are referring to misleading screeds from a hard-left political hack. Seems that is all you care about... such hacks.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:13:23

Firstly, it doesn't matterwho states the factsbecause they areempirical, verifiable economic facts. I don't careif Hitler says it, you can find those growth numbersin any study you look at .

Furthermore, food priceshave actually increased and food poverty as well sinceNAFTA's initiation. So theregoes that argument.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 11:12:31

You keep quoting a hard left, total government control, statist as if hard left opinion = fact.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:12:29

And the state. of course, is the mechanism through which the rulers arrogantly force their personal will on everyone. This is how it always is, and this is why the size of the state must be diminished.

Or else you will get boot-licking, fascistic liars like you claiming that the state does what the common people want. The name of the "People's Republic of China" is made to fool people like you. And it appears it works.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:10:00

Why would an economy shrink that has had consisten growth for 65 years?

" During NAFTA, Mexico has had the slowest rate of economic growth than [with] any other previous economic strategy since the 1930s."

So what you're saying is that "whatever facts you give me, I will simply deny them and conjure up a 'could've been different' scenario."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 11:08:37

And it turns out you are quoting a member of a far-left pressure group, .... a clearinghouse for the hard-left agenda.... one that favors fascistic (government-controlled) economics over popularly controlled, decentralized economics (i.e. capitalism). And I see the article, perhaps from this hard-left source, even mentions the perennial bogeyman of the Stalinists: the so-called "transnational corporations".

And it is quite interesting that you complain in the end about Mexicans being able to get properly-priced food. Of course, the alternative to what you despise is people going hungry due to much higher cost food.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:07:59

Wow. Total lack of logic

"During NAFTA, Mexico’s economy grew much slower than almost every Latin American country. So to say that NAFTA has benefited the Mexican economy is also a myth"

There is no connection between the first and second sentence. A great leap of logic. And nothing to deny that the Mexican economy might have grown even slower, or shrunk, if they did what you want: close the factories and fire the Mexicans working in them.

"Two of the most lucrative of the multi-billion-dollar oil contracts went to two countries which bitterly opposed the U.S. invasion — Russia and China — while even Total Oil of France, which led the charge to deny international approval for the war at the U.N. Security Council in 2003, won a bigger stake than the Americans in the most recent auction. "[The distribution of oil contracts] certainly answers the theory that the war was for the benefit of big U.S. oil interests,"

The elites in big government are way too powerful and big, crushing and robbing and denying the rights of the little and and big business alike. And you tell massive whoppers in a bootlicking fashion to moan that the abusive too-powerful rulers don't have enough power.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 11:02:02

It's not a theory, nor is it a conspiracy. It's simply a well-documented fact that everyone knows about. Anyone who can read, or hasworked in Mexican agriculture in the past 20 years.

"Even analysts who tout the economic benefits of NAFTA to all three member countries acknowledge that Mexico has benefited less than its neighbors to the north. Perez-Rocha confirmed that, saying, “During NAFTA, Mexico has had the slowest rate of economic growth than [with] any other previous economic strategy since the 1930s. From 1994 to 2013, Mexico’s gross domestic product per capita has grown at a paltry rate of 0.89 percent per year.” Additionally, “During NAFTA, Mexico’s economy grew much slower than almost every Latin American country. So to say that NAFTA has benefited the Mexican economy is also a myth. It has boosted trade and investment, but this has not translated into meaningful growth that generates jobs. One of the problems that NAFTA has generated is basically an exporting economy for transnational corporations, not for the Mexican industry per se.”

It turns out that not only did NAFTA, “flood Mexico with imported corn and cheap grains from the United States,” but “it also destroyed Mexico’s own industries,” according to Perez-Rocha."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 10:56:11

Are you serious? Who got the oil contracts in Iraq after the dust settled? Could it have been George and his friends?

Or maybe read your favorite "capitalist" Adam Smith:

"This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of [manufacturers], that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and destruction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists. (Smith, Wealth of Nations, page 368)"

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 10:40:55

I refuse to buy into baseless conspiracy theories that are put forth with the goal of crushing the private sector and giving more absolute power to the rulers.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 10:40:27

"Who runs big government? Big money."

Seeing imaginary situations is not blind, but it is stupid. "Big money" pays tribute to goverment, not the other way around. You come across like a paranoid boob.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 10:34:32

"after all through what mechanism can common people affect their society?"

They can through their own actions. That is how it should be. The state, legitimately, should not "affect society", but should instead perform the minimum requirements of government and no more.

It's rather North Korea to have the state shape society, rather than leave this up to the people themselves.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-28 10:33:30

"The state is not a necessary part of freedom" yet two seconds later you say "It must be thought of as a necessary evil."

So which one is it? Is the state necessary or not?

Of course it is necessary, after all through what mechanism can common people affect their society? Nowhere but through the state.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-28 10:29:08

Who runs big government? Big money. Are you blind? They have newspapers in brail, ya know.

We need health care. we don't need the government to control it. that is fascistic.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-27 04:44:45

I deal with dozens and dozens of media and food corps. Things get less concentrated there.

The "power of government", however, seeks to make a much more centralized cartel.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-27 04:42:58

But what if the public demands that the government rein in, break up or seize the power of big money interests and multinational corporations? Perfectly constitutional to regulate foreign and interstate commerce and multinationals inherently do both. The banks that are too big to fail are either too big to exist or big enough to nationalize.

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-27 00:36:17

In the present end==monopoly stage of capitalism where there are 6 media+ corps, 5 food corps and a handful of banks that control most of what US hear, eat and use for homes, only the power of government of, by and for people can break those cartels back up into your desired 'many players'.

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-26 23:54:19

The Three-Fifths Compromise was forced into the original US Constitution by wealthy Southern land+slave owners who insisted that their slaves be counted as human only for apportionment of political power. Big money control was baked in the cake:

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-26 23:23:36

When Reagan took office we were the world's largest net exporter of finished goods now the situation is reversed and we are the world's largest net importer. All these so-called free trade agreements have allowed corporations to indulge in fake trade with themselves and ripoff people in both countries at once. Damn straight the problem isn't with rich people 'giving' money to politicians it is the effective bribery and extortion that is created by big money's political ad power. The net effect of campaign cash, perks from lobbyists and the revolving door is the rental or lease-to-own purchase of the government of US. The problem is not government of US per se it is the control of that government by the wealthy few who pursue empire, within and without, by all means available solely to enrich themselves further. Our crony capitalist system of interlocking directorates extending from corporations into government is a form of fascism not socialism.Perhaps you would prefer no government Mr. Ash, but in that case there would still be police and militaries only they would all be private and beholden to none. This is a situation more like the Wild West, Somalia or the Middle Ages than any modern civilized nation. Wait, wait! I hear you cry We need to keep the army and the police! which makes your ideal system: a government of the people by the government for the corporations - simply another form of fascism wrapped in and harshed by the fantasy that powerful interests have never controlled the government of US. Ever heard of the 3/5ths Compromise? It was baked in the cake from the get go...Only a candidate who is not for sale is worthy of your vote. #FeelTheBern

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-26 23:16:12

The difference is socialism is a single, much less accountable player (which is even more, to use your word, "fascistic"). Obamacare moves is in that direction with just a few players.

I want many many players. Having governmental power to force feed people to a government "uber alles" monopoly is even less desirable than what you describe.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-26 21:45:44

You are missing the key distinction: the socialist single-payer does not insert the profit layer between the social agency and the individual that Obamacare does. This makes the ACA plutocratic (skimming), oligarchic (by the well-placed few) and fascistic: it uses governmental power to force feed people to the insurance companies as customers. Our economy is built on FIRE. Bernie would put that out. Single-payer Medicare for all saves money all over the place: people are set free of health care/insurance concerns and expense in time and money, auto insurance costs are slashed by the move to property coverage only, businesses are set free like people and they lose the global disadvantage they now bear. They gain focus, lower costs of employment and more freedom in hiring as well. Insurance executives would be paid on the GS scale - not the current astronomical scale. Insurance adjusters would never deny anyone health care instead they would root out provider fraud. We need health care. We don't need for-profit health insurance companies.

#FeelTheBern

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-26 21:41:50

"I'm pretty sure that you think ACA is socialism"

It is not socialism as such the way it ended up ( a lot less socialist than the proposed bill which had the nasty teeth kicked off of it during the negotiation process.

But in how the bill that was passed still represented the arrogance of the ruling class controlling the people and their lives? That is what socialism is all about... and in that, it is socialist.

"crypto-fascist, pure 'free' market solution"

That's an oxymoron. A free market negates any form of fascism, free or otherwise. Regardless, the ACA is not free market at all, as there is a massive amount of the few in power (Washington) forcing their own personal choices on everyone. The law is nothing but restrictions on the free market, starting with the famous massive middle class tax hike called "the mandate".

The problem is big government, period.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-26 14:03:51

The ACA indeed has many socialism aspects. Obama admitted that his goal was total government control of healthcare. The ACA bill included a provision to move toward this: the so called "public option" which made the ACA a lot worse. Thankfully, outrage over this got it removed.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-26 13:15:27

In the run up to the entirely private, totally non-socialist ACA (aka Obamacare) just the pharmaeutical companies dispensed 1/4 billion in lobbying. On average, $500,000 per member of Congress. I'm pretty sure that you think ACA is socialism, but it is a crypto-fascist, pure 'free' market solution where the corporations call the tune and the entire populace becomes a captive market. In addition, in many states Medicaid has been privatized. The problem is not 'big government' but the near total sellout of government.

Posted by LeMoyne on 2015-09-26 13:10:40

Did I contradict Zizek? Did I disagree with him? No. I never mentioned him, I stayed the fuck away from his argument so I would not broach it unintentionally. And even if I did it is too much of a meta-debate to be of value to the question how we shall solve the immediate problem of helping these refugees and immigrants.

Yes, try that take. What about those nations? That they're poor? That they're rife with corruption? There's war in several nations that are concentrated to hotspots and are not uniformly covering those nations inflicted? That Western guilt has boundaries to what we caused but the entire world stubbornly refuses to accept this fact?

External nations should stay out of these regions is a given. However, it is funny how the West is soundly criticized when it does not intervene. How do they want it? Should we stay out or should we interest ourselves in their political bullshit? Give a straight answer, please.

And here we go again. The fucking blame-the-West-carousel is steadily circling its centre of victimhood. US fucked Africa and Middle East over to serve their own ideological, economical and — you wont believe it — to make up for some of their guilt. They (We) was also invited, beseeched to give aid to plenty of these regions that today are human made hell holes. Sadly, they, US, could not do it themselves, or at least they refused to do it themselves in order to cover their home base, why they went skipping down the political avenue and drummed assemble. They worked UNs (Europe primarily) political and economical top-strata to support intervention in nations like Iraq or Afghanistan or Bosnia; many wars where for humanitarian reasons but several went straight to hell because of the inability of the intervening forces' political and military leaders inability to consider the history behind some conflicts, to understand their particular socio-political natures. Just as the intervening nations afterwards refused to dump a sack of cash to help them rebuild; creating more suffering as a result. Why it turned belly half-side-up and puked all over several efforts, which went down in history to prove Western guilt and to load the barrels of disingenuous fuck-heads that staunchly refuses to acknowledge the dirt on their underbelly and comes to grip with the reality that most European countries simply want to be left outside the political crusades America invents every five years or so!

I agree that US, because it is US mainly, often bringing along the morally bankrupt triplets England, Germany and France to do US biddings, should own up to their foreign policies but this does not cut slack for those severely morally bankrupt shit flingers and holy book crazed retards hiding behinds their dunes!

The guilt part: they thought that if they promised certain political groups with a strong support from the local citizenry they would avoid a fiasco; they did this in Kosovo which prolonged the war and made it even more bloody.

No; the Western nations — Europe and North America — is wholly incapable of keeping control of their own soil if the demographic changes to the point where its immigrant part outnumbers its indigenous part. Remember Australia and America? During the time when the white immigrants settled these regions? What happened to the indigenous populations? Yeah . . . With all the ingrained vitriol against whites you can do the genocide-crunching yourself and make a prediction. Enjoy the prediction?

See we will not turn to massacre immigrants on our streets just because they're simply going to outnumber us very soon — at least in Sweden; in several regions they already do and those places unflinchingly, unapologetically, invariably degrades to piss poor, dilapidating, uneducated social shit stains! Malmö Is just a few years short of turning to Rosengård on full bloom! — in our own countries. But what we can do is to turn them back and force those that are already let in to adopt to our cultures or they can find their best walking pair and leave.

About Sweden. We own wood, a lot of wood. We have iron of high quality. We have high concentration of certain minerals (Read: Ytterby's role in the Periodic table) that is needed in high conceptual research and development. But other than that, we own nothing of strategic value — no oil, no huge amount of gold or silver, no cobalt, close to nil rare earth metals, no nothing. Our society is slowly falling apart. Already have the Turks and Kurds clashed and community halls has been bombed belonging to the Kurds (I think). They rioted the Sunday before the last one and entire central Stockholm was a little ethnic quarrel over whom killed whom a hundred years ago.

By this rant, I hope, you can tell that I'm rather concerned with the state of the world and this crisis. I want a solution that works out for us all but these poor and unfortunate people can't be given permanent residency because that is unpalatable a thought due to it increasing risks of civil wars between ethnic groups cramped tight together in a continent that is already very crowded.

Posted by Robin on 2015-09-24 20:01:17

What Zizek is saying is that the Right wing policies of anti-immigration and pro-capitalism are contradictory. In other words, capitalism is actually the root cause of this mass migration.

How so? Let's look at the regions they are fleeing from: North Africa, Syria, and Iraq. What do these places have in common? If we take a look we can see that they all had puppet regimes controlled by US and western power in order to maintain un-democratic "stability." In other words, the US and the West used Assad, Hussein, etc to effectively keep down the masses which in turn kept things open for foreign investment. Once theseleaders began to falter due to popular pressure from within, war breaks out and the US has to find another puppet regime.

What's the point? If there is any attempt at democratic change, nationalization of rwsources, or popular uprise, the US and its allies squash those attempts and re organize things so that investments can flow again. This is an undeniable trend and per usual we can look to Chomsky to organize the information for us.

Now, this of course does not mean the Swede's are responsible for the entire actions of the West. No, instead it simply means (for Zizek) that if you really want people to "stay in their own country" (I kinda want this too), then we need to be staunch opponents of global capitalism and choose the far Left politics over the far Right.

After all, don't the Swede's have a nationalized oil/resources (in some aspects at least?)?

Chomsky and Zizek would simply prefer that these weaker countries be allowed to nationalize and remove foreign interests IF THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-24 13:18:27

The writer surely does all kinds of logistic gymnastics, doesn't he? On one hand, he blames the white man for the dark natives' sorry state... on the other, the white man has the key to their salvation (willing to give them asylum).... by letting so many muslims inside their borders, Germany, etc. are committing cultural suicide. we all have seen what European-based muslims are capable of doing in the name of a their miserable god... what's to prevent this new wave of muslims from turning against their hosts too? The a-hole muslim who bombed the Boston marathon entered the US with his filthy family as political refugees. They lived on welfare...and look how they paid us back. For a true look at muslims and their backward thinking, read any book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Of course, many habitues of this site probably hate her, since she's the worst nightmare of a leftist/socialists/liberal/do gooder... a black woman who escaped a barbaric society, learned a new language in a new land, and became elected to parlament. Her sin? Her no-holds-criticism of islam and muslims. Zizek could learn a thing or two from the lady.

Posted by viva la migra on 2015-09-22 01:37:37

Yes poor results and good pay. While they are probably overpaid (very few are paid 100k, this is reserved for advanced degree and lengthy tenure), I don't really see much of a problem. These people are dealing with someof the most difficult classrooms in America. I have absolutely no problem with paying Detroit teachers (despite their low results) 50-60k, especially considering the utter difficulty of their job.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 22:06:05

I too support merit pay: by the demerit of destroying the environment, we should take away their pay. Oh wrong topic, my fault.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 22:03:46

Okay Europe, you have fun ending Capitalism. Just don't cry when you run out of money and all the "rich" people that you hoped to "tax" magically end up in the US.

So he admits they have unrealistic utopian dreams and then inserts his own utopian dream which has already failed countless times and led to many millions dead? It would be a lot simpler to put up a fence and also stop the boats.

Posted by registeredanon on 2015-09-21 21:15:08

Yet in places like Detroit. you have teachers grossly overpaid in poor areas, with poor results.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 16:54:42

Well then we know exactly who will get the highest pay: teacher's in the richest school districts. Taken a step further, we can easily conclude that twacher's will flock to these schools (they already do). So you have the best teachers teaching the already smartest and richest students with the poorer districts steadily declining due to lower pay and fewer and less accomplished teachers.

This sounds like a recipe for succes!

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 16:51:02

I strongly support merit pay, and elimination of tenure.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 16:45:52

A poor region with some of the highest teacher pay.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 16:45:31

Interesting that you chose one of the poorest regions in the country and compared it to an entire state....

As I said I've read stuff on both sides and surely your Detroit argument is lacking. I could also tell you Massachussets has some of the best (unionized) districts in the country comparedto poor un-unionized districts in the Deep South.

But as I said, these are not good comparisons because it is so difficult to find a true causal link with so many factors. Comparing ruralMississippi to Boston area is simply unfeasable: Boston of course has far more wealth (among other factors).

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 16:38:10

Things get a lot more interesting if you look at regions, not states. You can look at Detroit, with some teachers (unionized) making over $100,000 a year and doing a real bad job. and much lower paid teachers in NC doing a much better job.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 16:16:41

Yes I see what you're saying.

From what I've read (I may be wrong) states with unionized teachers have more fair distribution of cash between districts and better teacher benefits.

That being said, I've found arguments on both sides that point to unionized districts being better/worse for students.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 16:07:50

Well that may be true but that is not what your "fact check" proposed before. You said NC allows for publicly unionized workers when it does not.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 15:18:50

Also, you need to study unions' impact on public service.

In the private sector, unions fight corporate fatcats. In the public sector, unions fight US. Any gain by government unions degrades public service (which harms poor recipients of services) while stealing the from the wallets of taxpayers.

The great liberal icon FDR argued against government unions destroying public service.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 12:52:59

So they want the power to 1) give themselves more power and more control (via government) and 2) to acquire more wealth?

Is this a correct re-phrasing?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 11:10:12

The rulers want power. Which is why they vote for more and more of it. Including trying to seize control of healthcare away from the people through "single payer"... but voter pressure stopped this. Or the rulers' demand for higher and higher taxes, which makes them more wealthy and powerful.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 11:01:06

NC workers can give any amount of $$$ they want to unions. They are not forced (an abuse which happens in California, New York, etc).

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:59:41

Sure but as I stated plainly (you can look on Wikipedia if you want) NC does not allow for collective bargaining (i.e. unionization) of public employees. So your statement is of course false.

As I said I'm not trying to nit pic the facts none of us know it all so let's get back to the more broad discussion: what are the interests of the elite and who are they?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:55:21

But back to the issue of discussion: who do you believe are the ruling elite and what do you believe are their interests?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:52:25

North Carolina strongly protects the rights of its workers.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:51:11

"North Carolina prohibits collective bargaining by public employees."

There exists a Teachers "Union" but it has to "hide" it's designation and is considered a professional development organization.

In other words, this organization is very weak because they cannot enforce typical Union standards such as forced unionization and forced dues due to the law.

Thanks for the totally arbitrary comment tho.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:50:19

Several out of millions. The Russians have some nostalgia now because they went straignt from communism to crony capitalism and didn't get much for it, not even pride. But I've never heard a Russian say it was a great place to live in and I DO know some Russians.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-21 10:37:06

By the way, you gave a list earlier of states like North Carolina which don't allow teachers' unions. They do allow them in fact.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:28:41

I have an idea, but I would like to hear what you believe their interests are.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:19:40

You have no idea?

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:17:39

Agreed. And who are these ruling elite? What are their interests?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:10:50

They serve their own interests, first and foremost. They are nudged by voters every couple of years.

The only "class" that matters is ruling class or not. And since they rule, they are ruling class.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:09:24

Who are the several hundred at the top? Who's interests do they serve? Could it be the class from which they came and to which they will return?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 10:08:16

The several hundred at the top control the government. They call the shots: the donors actually pay a massive amount of taxes.

" not the good ole boy prez who "formerly" worked in the oil biz"

No quotes needed around formerly.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 10:02:23

And who controls the government?

Surely not the billion dollar donars, not the good ole boy prez who "formerly" worked in the oil biz, definitely not any of these.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-21 09:56:44

I know several people who lived in the USSR. Nobody says it was perfect, but all of those people says it was a great country to live in. Most things were free, the quality of life good. But these are things they don't tell you in USA, so I don't blame you for your ignorance.

Posted by klokker1 on 2015-09-21 09:47:15

The state is not a necessary part of freedom... as it always diminishes freedom.

It must be thought of as a necessary evil, and limited. The Congo? The vast majority of the deaths there were when it was tightly controlled by a monarchy.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 08:51:07

"Crony capitalism" can arise from the root problem: the government being too strong.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 08:42:07

Junis: Communists brought slavery to Africa, especially in the Soviet colonies like Ethiopia, after the Western Euro colonial empire and slave trade were long over.

There are fewer and weaker unions in Texas than there might be otherwise for no other reason than this is how workers want this to be.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:49:49

The opposite is true. The government, by being too big and powerful, controls us.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:43:00

John: Bono Devil Bork has what might be a racist view of Chinese, as being distant slaves. It is patronizing and insulting to real Chinese people.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:42:28

I know Chinese people. Very few are slaves. a tiny minority, and only those in prison labor. The slavery problem has gone down significantly in China from when it was completely socialist. Under socialism, slavery was the rule in China. Under capitalism, it is rare.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:41:40

Exactly. The word "slave" is a bad word, of course. Means something bad. But Bon Jovi Burqa uses it without regard to its meaning, for pure emotion effect.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:40:44

"Exactly, WE should do something. And what we should do is fight against the ridiculous accumulation of capital"

You are very greedy. You want to steal what others' earn. Why not create your own wealth???

"You talk about "freedom" but ignore the very clear consequences of massive capital accumulation: a new slave class."

Neither of which occurs.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:39:57

"Newsflash bud: the current government has ALWAYS been co-opted by capitalist interests."

How can it always be true when it has never actually been true? The real problem is big government.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:39:01

NAFTA was an improvement on what was there before, as it eroded the power of the rulers and let individuals make their own decisions.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:37:58

Communism has killed more than 50 million people. It's a mistake not worth repeating.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:36:52

Far many more died in slavery in the Soviet Gulag.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:36:08

In capitalism, no one is a slave. Period. Only some might imagine everyone is a slave without evidence, and in contradiction to the definition of "slave".

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:35:10

The institutional frameworks of communism are easy to see now as an example in North Korea.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:34:35

Syria is a typical socialist government. That is the source of the refugee crisis. If you want to go to the root of the problem, confront and get rid of the problem of socialism.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2015-09-21 07:33:47

Funny. So you do realy believe that markets are able to rule the world freely? And marked are tending to be ethically? And governments are the evil? No, from my point of view. The invisible hand (markets) is an illusion, a tremedous fake.

One of the main errors is, the influence of the economics to the governments, instead of the citizens-advantage.

Posted by Kai Hansen on 2015-09-21 03:36:19

If you are generalizing, its that kind of thinking, that is setting others into slavery.Times of simplification such as simple definitons and formulaicals are fading out the necessarily alternatives.

Posted by Kai Hansen on 2015-09-21 03:32:02

Thank you very much, Slavoj Zizek !!! I read that in "DIE ZEIT" in german translation. It moves me and my friends.

Posted by Kai Hansen on 2015-09-21 03:25:50

Well, one solution is to limit corporations as they used to be - for limited charters and for specific works, that once completed, ended the corporation and a new one must be chartered for a new limited role. The problem, of course, is that things like Apple computer must almost inherently be a corporation. But many other companies certainly do not need to be. But all owners and shareholders being liable would be a big step. If you are a 1/1000 owner, you are liable for 1/1000th of bankruptcy debt.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 21:36:40

Anything I have to say will lack the specifics of concrete detail (I do not, unlike many who speak of politics, naively believe my words should control the behavior of mass population). Instead, my views are only tendencies that could become a legitimate orientation for society to struggle towards. My views are not necessity and society can transition in alternative manners that you and I may not even be able to predict. Because of this, I can only speak of what I feel is perhaps needed at the moment in general terms (the details are left up to the actual activities of human communities).

One critical issue I see is the conflict between various concerns addressed by citizens or activist that is blatantly dismissed by corporate structures. Fundamentally, major institutions including private corporations operate by means that are undemocratic in many respects. My personal judgement is that a significant change is needed surrounding how major institutions functionally behave; away from rigid hierarchy and concentrations of power into narrow groups of people. What is perhaps needed is a more democratic approach to how institutions make and enforce its specific policy that distributes decision making power to the collectives of people who make up the particular institution. The specifics of what this would look like is something no person can speak of without risking over-determining people's actual activities.

Posted by Derrick on 2015-09-18 13:25:00

And how do you come to assume that I am for these things? Do you know what the original purpose of a corporation was and how it differs from what we do today?

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 10:18:16

And the Strawman of the Decade goes to......what a surprise.....hyperbole.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 10:17:28

But he created the spark. He was entirely wrong about human nature, but this was an easy excuse for murderers and terrorists.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 10:16:59

I'm up for anything that doesn't use violence. Got anything? Because we know that communism is impossible without violence.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 10:16:11

In theory, but it works against human nature and therefore requires force. I challenged "Bueno" (not his real name) to come up with a non-violent solution and he couldn't.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-18 10:15:15

I believe the solutions should be as radical as the problem itself. You can't solve this problem by peaceful negotiation, because our culture and theirs are severely implemented into our and their way of being. Islam affects them much much more than Christianity influences us - there is no more traditional Christianity, nor are there any christian values present in today's Europe. It's mainly capitalism and its pressures. However, their Sharia (Islamic law, implemented in everything) recognizes no other alternatives. We can't even imagine to believe they would be willing to abandon their Sharia for our legislation, norms and overall European way of life. They won't... So it's us conforming to them or the other way around. But can we really live together happily ever after in harmony and hope to sing carols together? Of course not! Well, at least this is not possible when it's so many of them suddenly pouring into our society with a very difficult realization that women in EU don't cover themselves up and live freely as men (for example). Two nights ago, a Serbian local woman in Belgrade was attacked by throwing rocks from the 4 male refugees. Why? She was jogging alone at night in shorts. According to their law and beliefs, such an act is punished by stoning. And they don't even think of themselves as foreigners in another country with totally different norms. They keep on implementing their own beliefs, because that's the most logical thing to do.

Posted by Meiko on 2015-09-18 09:48:31

Communism is a stateless classless moneyless society. The 20th century communism should be (and is by scholars) called real socialism and shows that marxism-leninism don't bring communism but dictatorship of a bureaucrat class, other proposed ways to get to communism are anarcho communism and marxist leftisms (councilism, luxemburgism ...).

Zizek refers to communism both as its true meaning, the end system, and also as a solution to the problem of the commons.

PS : i'm not communist, but a libertarian market socialist which is a strain of mutualism, so I'm not fighting for my church here :)

Posted by LeDore on 2015-09-17 18:49:28

Ahhh there's nothing like the sound....of silence.

Or maybe you got too bored by this tree you barked up. Keep trucking with your capitalist agenda, I'll stick to mine. The tide is surely turning and there's no better evidence than the conservatives trolling hard lacking arguments over the internet. The truth is on our side. Or as Zizek puts it:

"truth is partial, accessible only when one takes sides, and is no less universal for this reason. The side taken here is, of course, communism."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-17 17:15:32

John, I think the most basic outlook expressed by Zizek's usage of "communism" is simply the need for alternative structural organizations of human communities and new ideas for how dominant institutions should operate differently from current norms. It is not explicitly clear what social order would take shape from such orientations but it is also deceptive to believe that entire systems can be constructed abstractly before they are concretely actualized. Every social system is an ongoing experiment that has no definitive end point and is created or reconfigured through active means by collective communities of people responding to structural establishments (in this sense, it would be a conceptual fascism to even attempt a "complete" systemic blueprint of a supposedly entire social order).

What is being emphasized by "communism" is the inherent potential for change as such (never giving in to beliefs that any particular social system is ever perfect, complete, or the natural order of human life).

Posted by Derrick on 2015-09-17 16:55:55

Actually it wasn´t Marx that performed the biggest genocide of the 20th century in Europe, but a different sect that used him as a cover - until Stalin put an end to their crimes.

So you believe in crony capitalism that prevents those with talent and hard work from getting ahead. No accident that the US has the lowest social mobility of the developed world -this is planned and propagandized massively with phony propaganda to "portect the privileges" of the very sort of semi-hereditary "aristocracy" against which we Americans fought our war of indpendence.

When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he very explicitly warned that "mercantilist corruption" inevitably ended up with a very small predator class abusing the population. He had two clear examples at hand: the rampant corruption of the predator sect in the "city of london" and the resistance of Americans who fought their civil war to liberate themselves from the sect´s "international company" (East India Company).

The "stock market" is a myth for a long time already. It is fully manipulated by governments. So much so that the US Congress passed a special law exempting themselves from insider trading laws. So much so that the Federal Reserve regularly "prints money" and divvies it out to foreign central banks to manipulate US stock prices (of its favored companies). The corruption further extends to laws giving corrupt, abusive companies legal impunity against damages caused by their products ....

Someone who is a "professor" in one of the most corrupt establishment universities in Britain has zero credibility. Remember that it was the Chancellor of UCL that accompanied MI6 to Egypt when the Pentagon put their trained general in charge of the country. Britons have been slaves of a corrupt, racist sect for centuries .... http://satyricon20.tripod.com/... .... The "British" ... http://www.exposetheestablishm... .... government continues "protecting" the crimes of the sect ... http://www.rollingstone.com/po... .... and the same corruption has grown in the US ever since the coup by the sect in 1912 (Federal Reserve - now presided by a member of the sect married to an "advisor" to a narcotrafficking British bank).

This is a far more credible explanation of the criminals behind the the immigration crisis in Europe.

I quote from Donald Planey's review of Losurdo's book that appears on the Amazon website.

"1. Liberalism does not expand the boundaries of freedom in an organic dialectical process. Liberalism has undergone profound changes in its history, but not because of any sort of internal tendency towards progress. The expanders of liberty have been rebellious slaves, socialists, organized workers, anti-colonial nationalists, and other forces outside of the Community of the Free. Generally, the Community of the Free only grants accessions when faced with powerful opposition from outside its walls.

2. Ideologies such as white supremacy, social Darwinism, and colonialism were created by liberals as a means of defending the liberty of the Community of the Free. When the American Founding Fathers rebelled against Britain, one of their most commonly stated reasons for doing so was that the British government didn't respect the freedom Americans had imbibed through their Northern European blood. The Framers saw themselves as the preservers of the freedoms of the Glorious Revolution, a revolution based on the right of freedom-worthy peoples to dominate the supposedly insipid masses. They were explicit in this respect, and the later history of liberalism continued to attest to this tendency.

3. Liberalism contains within itself the semi-hidden corollary that human behavior must be strictly regulated in order for freedom to be maintained. In liberalism, individuals have the freedom to compete with one another and rise to the top based on merit. Liberal elites have often interpreted this as proof that those at the top of the social ladder deserve their place. The other conclusion that stems from this is that criminals, the uneducated, the poor, and non-Western cultures fully deserve their servile status. If nature wanted them to be part of the Community of the Free, so goes the logic, then it would allow them to participate in liberty. Therefore, the dominated peoples of the world must hold their position due to their own internal defects. For Losurdo, this belief is what defines liberalism and separates it from radicalism.

4. In liberalism, liberty has historically been seen as a trait that people possess, one granted by nature. Thus, liberalism easily justifies its tendencies towards inequality by devising various ways of explaining why nature simply doesn't grant some people the liberty it grants others. Meanwhile, radicalism sees the establishment of liberty as an active process. Interestingly, this indicates that negative liberty possesses a magnetism towards authoritarianism. Losrudo points out that during the early days of Fascism, many liberals in the U.S. and Western Europe such as von Mises, Croce, and the Italian liberal establishment saw Mussolini's regime as a possible defender of classical liberalism and liberty as it was understood by the Anglo-Saxon theorists of liberalism.

This book is as disturbing as it is insightful. I personally see it as self-evident that many of the authoritarian tendencies that Losurdo identifies have made a comeback with a vengeance in the neo-liberal era, and have strengthened since the start of the Great Financial Crisis."

Posted by glennwire on 2015-09-17 06:37:54

PostCapitalist Critical Left Futurist.

Above all this position is intended as a *analytical* and empirical claim basedupon the historical analysis and account as given by Immanuel Wallerstein andhis school of World Systems Analysis. The 500 year-old Capitalist World Systemis currently in terminal historical crisis.

And allsignificant political praxis concerns the battle for the nature of thepost-Capitalist World System or systems.

Well . . . you're welcome to have a gander at the current Swedish situation. I see it everyday. It's horrendous how brushed aside and pushed down ethnic Swedes are in their own nation. I'm a ethnic Swede and my voice simply doesn't matter if I dare to criticize the deluge of immigrants accepted into Sweden. We can't simply handle the influx! We're too afraid to demand of them to align with the dominant Swedish culture. Our economy can't provide for a group that numbers close to 2 millions where about 60% of it doesn't work full-time, or at all; for a group were employment opportunities degrades gradually through time. Mostly because those few that are employed are so only part-time and they run a high risk of losing their jobs within the first year of employment and then might be out of job for another decade.

Just because SD is the largest party today doesn't equate to a rise in individuals accepting racism. We're concerned that we're losing the nation we built for over a thousand years to people that don't care for it but only for what it can hand out for free.

Posted by Robin on 2015-09-16 17:19:18

Couldn't agree more. And indeed it seems rather obvious to point out to Constitution Thumpers: what was the STATED PREMISE of the Constitution?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-16 12:16:00

1) "Your point doesnt make sense."

Well put, I'm glad you couldnt understand my extremely difficult and overly complex analogy of the sausage. Not sure how much clearer I can get: the vast overuse of the term "freedom of choice" is of course as I said a false choice. Meaning: they ignore the other, 3rd choice: nationalized healthcare, mandatory unionization. Overly complex analogy:

"Choice": You want a piece of chocolate cake or a piece of vanilla cake?

What if I want neither?

Similarly, they have somewhat privarized utilities in the state of Texas and , shock and awe, prices have gone up. Regardless of the price, why would I want the "free choice" for something that is a necessity? Would you like Dasani for 2 dollars or Fiji for 3? I'll take the hose! Oh wait, private industries now own the hose! Jk but that will likely happen.

2) "I'll look at it if I'm bored enough"

This is nearly how all my Disqus discussions end: with the weaker side playing the typical cynical card: who cares? Well you seemed to care before I actually engaged your arguments.

3) "The ad hominem fallacy is disregarding an argument out of hand because of the source. Requiring claims be supported is *not* disregarding an argument"

Indeed, as I pointed out explicitly: you claimed that because I made one false statement that I am no longer a legitimate source, everything I say is "suspicious" of inaccuracy.

Yes, regarding my argument about Right To work, you were correct to point out my inaccuracy. HOWEVER, all of my other arguments should not be called into immediete suspisioon. As I stated ad naseum, THIS is ad homimem.

4) I said next to nothing because of course I don't have those exact figures, that would take some digging. So I did some.

On average, undocumented migrants earned approximately 20% less than legal immigrants and 13% less than legal temporary workers. - See more at:

"The researchers’ central hypothesis is that “a rising share of undocumented workers competing in U.S. labor markets generally works to lower the wages of Mexican immigrants, who increasingly lack documents and labor rights in the U.S. and are thus uniquely vulnerable and exploitable.” The IRCA had the effect of making the hiring of a significant percentage of the U.S. residents of Mexican origin illegal."

In other words, my argument was that these workers are clearly in a more precarious situation for at least 2 reasons 1) of course they can't negotiate THEYRE NOT CITIZENS and will be deported and 2) they have few employeebenefits and low job security. Something like Alan Greenspan said, only he forgot to mention one factor: CITIZENSHIP of the workers involved

" At some point, the tradeoff of subdued wage growth for job security has to come to an end. In other words, the relatively modest wage gains we have experienced are a temporary rather than a lasting phenomenon because there is a limit to the value of additional job security people are willing to acquire in exchange for lesser increases in living standards. "

5) "they will be replaced" and deported. The whole point of worker rights and unions is the ability to peacefully strike in order to negotiate wages with your employer. Immigrants do not have this right. Similarly, Legislation has slowly degraded unionization for American citizens.

Mexican immigrants don't have the rights of citizens, which in turn means they dont have the rights of employees: they are fully subject to the powers of their employer. Aviva Chomsky documents this well in her book, "Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal.". In other words I consider worker rights a universal human right, citizenship or not.

6) "Removing investment dollars will surely help those economies to grow!"

Indeed economies that attempt to remove US investment in favor of say nationalization of resources, redistribution of wealth and other socialistpolicies have paid HEAVILY for their transgressions.

The reasoning behind their punishment is relatively obvious: if you remove US investment the US will remove your government and implant a terroristic puppet regime. A few, among many, examplesof this are: Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Columbia to name afew who have recieved "secret" CIA treatment.

These are facts documented by the US government itself, you can do further research if you'dlike.

7) "I only asked to get a frame of reference."

This is again the adhominem: after all what were you planning on learning? "You've never even been to all these countries so your comments are meaningless!" That wasn't hard to see

8) I've made multiple arguments against global capitalism. I disagree with the current state of capitalism because I believe 1) it creates a new slave class, deprived of basic human rights in favor of moneyed interests and 2) It destroys any chance at national solidarity and public ownership, especially within 3rd worldcountries.

I have given you multiple examples of these.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-16 09:50:23

Well, it beats being retarded.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-16 00:16:00

Whatever bromides you *profess* what you actually *practice* can only be a vicious karmic system of Pharisaic and deliberately repressive and exploitative "charity". If that.

"Jesus of Nazareth, irregular rabbi that He was, erased the traditional moral distinction between committing an act and intending. He taught that desire itself is a sin, that the thought is enough. The early Christians shaped their evolving theology around this principle, but even in this new scheme of sin, the primacy of avarice (avaritia, which we translate somewhat inadequately as “the love of money”) remained. Avaritia, the Apostle Paul warned, is the root of all evil; and the early Church took up his cry. The devout took to writing Paul’s doctrine as an acrostic, making it a kind of cartoon about the corruption of Rome as well as a cautionary dictum:

Radix (the root)Omnium (of all)Malorum (evils) Avaritia (avarice.).

We in the new millennium understand this kind of graphic punning. Our own version might look like this:

" Under Madisonian logic, it is important for power to be handed to “the more capable of men,” in order “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” The class warfare derived from this manner of thinking has been heavily ingrained into the American system, for Madison’s beliefs have become the “guiding principle of the democratic system from its origins until today.” He was driven to create a system that would fragment society, protect the elites from “mischief,” and keep at bay those who “labor under all hardships of life and secretly sign for a more equal distribution of its benefits”

“Madisonian scholars” agree that to James Madison and the Founding Fathers “the Constitution” was an “intrinsically…aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period, delivering to a ‘better sort’ of people and excluding those who were not rich, well born, or prominent from exercising political power.” Since the affluent were the only authority to “discern the interest of the country,” Madison’s framework provided the necessary backdrop for capitalism’s rise and the positioning of corporate leaders into their prominent positions in society."

> "The third choice (ie ... "forced" unionization) is the choice that is not readily available and for good reason: they don't make the capitalist any money."

Um... like, this is was point. Your point doesn't make sense. Previously, you indicated that being forced to join a union was part of a "false choice". Now you indicate that it is part of "the third choice".

> "Here's the ful study if you'd like."

I'll look at it if I get bored enough. But, this conversation is already boring me.

> "This is indeed the ad hominem argument: he said one thing wrong and therefore I suspect everything he says is untrue. "

You understanding of what an ad hominem fallacy is, is about as accurate as was your view of what right to work laws do.

Seriously, if you want me to maintain an interest in this conversation you need to step it up a few notches.

The ad hominem fallacy is disregarding an argument out of hand because of the source. Requiring claims be supported is *not* disregarding an argument. I have increased the level of support that I require for claims you make, due to the fact that I've witnessed you make claims that were demonstrably false. You didn't even say, "I think this is how it works." You said, "This is how it works." Only, you didn't actually know what you were talking about; you literally just made up "facts" to support your position.

You do understand that arguments and claims of fact are different things, right?

> "Read the article, dude...."

You made a claim. I want to know what *you* mean by it.

> "Mexicans are working for next to nothing an hour, have few worker rights, and are at a moments notice subject to deportation. These precarious workers however have far more advantages than say an immigrant worker in Quatar. Point being, these are people deprived of basic citizenship: no worker negotiation (they will be replaced), no voting rights, no public or employer benefits, and very few regulations."

This is just a bunch of rambling. It isn't a coherent position.

Examples: "Mexicans are working for next to nothing an hour..."- What is "next to nothing"? Is it better than their alternative? What is their alternative?

"these are people deprived of basic citizenship"- You mean, non-citizens don't have rights of citizenship?! Insightful!

"no worker negotiation"- So, you have to be a citizen to negotiate?

"they will be replaced"- So, citizens can't be replaced?

etc.

> "nationalize and remove foreign capitalist interests from their ownership."

Brilliant! Removing investment dollars will surely help those economies to grow. <facepalm>

> "Ive been to 4 third world countries but this is again the ad hominem..."

So, now asking a question is an "ad hominem"? Dude, you seriously need to get a grip. I asked ino order to better understand what your frame of reference might be. Have you spent a significant amount of time in any of those countries? Did you note how people lived? How they made money? Where grey/black markets common?

> "Just because I have not been to every third world country in no way means I cannot make an argument against global capitalism."

So far, I haven't seen you "make an argument against global capitalism." You've basically just made some vague disjointed statements.

Posted by simplethinking on 2015-09-15 21:23:52

1) Yes I gave you multiple examples of these false choices and I think the healthcare example is quite appropriate. In other words, this is like offering me pie or cake when actually I want a piece of sausage. The third choice (ie nationalized healthcare, "forced" unionization) is the choice that is not readily available and for good reason: they don't make the capitalist any money.

2) "Wages in RTW states are 3.1 percent lower than those in non-RTW states, after controlling for a full complement of individual demographic and socioeconomic factors as well as state macroeconomic indicators. This translates into RTW being associated with $1,558 lower annual wages for a typical full-time, full-year worker."

" I didn't say that just because you got some very simple and easily verifiable facts wrong, that it meant you were wrong about *everything*."

You then continue..

. "While this doesn't mean that every statement is incorrect, it certainly means that every statement you make is suspect."

This is indeed the ad hominem argument: he said one thing wrong and therefore I suspect everything he says is untrue. That is of course a fine way to think, but until you point out those mistakes, you're following to a tee the ad hominem fallacy. Simply put: you employed this argument for the very purpose or bringing all of my statements "into question," "undersuspicion."

Indeed I usually do do my research and try to find verifiable sources. On this one matter I simply stated what I thought was true about Texas and indeed the crux of my argument is not damaged by the error: Texas has weaker and fewer unionized workers.

4) "What is this slave class?"

Read the article, dude. Also, look at Texas for example where thousands of Guatemalans, Mexicans are working for next to nothing an hour, have few worker rights, and are at a moments notice subject to deportation. These precarious workers however have far more advantages than say an immigrant worker in Quatar. Point being, these are people deprived of basic citizenship: no worker negotiation (they will be replaced), no voting rights, no public or employer benefits, and very few regulations.

4) "What should people in the 3rd world do?"

Do what Cuba, Nicaragua, and some other South American countries did: nationalize and remove foreign capitalist interests from their ownership. This is difficult to do as most countries (especially the USA) will not react with gentleness.

5) As I said multiple times: I'm not smart enough to sketch out an entire new society but I think a vague opening for a new Communism would be the project i support. A radical new discussion about property, including intellectuall property, and how to deal with it. As I said, I think this will require a revolt and the conditions are tipping towards a radical break it would seem.

Ive been to 4 third world countries but this is again the ad hominem: it makes absolutely no difference whether or not I've been to these places. Just because I have not been to every third world country in no way means I cannot make an argument against global capitalism.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-15 20:40:46

> "This is, of course, a false choice"

Care to be more specific? You attempt at a 'healthcare' analogy was largely incoherent rambling.

>"Wages in RTW states are 3.1% lower."

In relation to what? Is that 3.1% lower across the board? Is that 3.1% lower comparing apple to apple jobs? Is that raw numbers? Does that account for differences in cost of living? Throwing out numbers without context isn't very meaningful.

> This is of course the age old and ridoculously overused ad hominem argument...

This is of course the ridiculously overused 'ad hominem fallacy' fallacy. I didn't say that just because you got some very simple and easily verifiable facts wrong, that it meant you were wrong about *everything*. I asked you if that fact that you got some very simple and easily verifiable facts extremely wrong, especially after making the incorrect statements with such assuredness, might cause you to reconsider whether you might also be overly confident in your assertion of other "facts".

Basically, you have demonstrated that you make statements, which you present as facts, without having actually verified them, nor even understanding the underlying realities surrounding them. While this doesn't mean that every statement is incorrect, it certainly means that every statement you make is suspect.

One would hope that a person having made such obvious misstatements of "fact", that such a person might be humble enough to acknowledge that their other claims of "fact" might need to researched, verified, and/or thought through more.

> "The fact that I did not know "right to work" laws is hardly grounds to deny all of my arguments."

Again, for clarification:

1) It isn't that you didn't know... it is that, even though you didn't know, you made an incorrect "statement of fact" as if you did know.

2) Such hyperbole. Where did I "deny all of [your] arguments"? The point is that you have already demonstrated that you pontificate on things you don't know in a manner falsely infers that you do know. I asked if having this pointed out to you gives you enough pause to consider the possibility that you might be mistaken about other [ claims / opinions / mistaken view that your beliefs are facts / etc ].

> capitalism has created a de facto slave class in 3rd world countries.

What is this "slave class"?

What existed before capitalism?

What would these people in the 3rd world do should capitalism be removed tomorrow?

What do you think should replace capitalism?

How many 3rd world countries have you been to?

Posted by simplethinking on 2015-09-15 18:33:14

"You mean laws that give individuals the freedom of choice to belong to a union or not? Rather than being forced to belong to a union should they not want to?"

This is, of course, a false choice. Similar to the one "offered" by those against nationalized healthcare: "You mean laws that give you the freedom to choose your healthcare? Rather than being forced should they not want to." In other words there are choices that I would choose to renounce. After all, shouldn't we go to the end, why not privatize water, electricity (isnt it already partially being privatized?), so that we can have more free choice!

I'm sure there are somenegative effects of Unionization, but you wouldnt want to run the numbers would you?

"Wages in RTW states are 3.1% lower."

The 5 states that do not allow teachers unions rank at or near the bottom: South Carolina – 50th

North Carolina – 49th

Georgia – 48th

Texas – 47th

Virginia – 44th

"If you 1) can't get such basic, and easily verifiable facts correct and 2) so fundamentally don't understand what "right to work" laws are, why do you think any of your related claims are any more accurate?"

This is of course the age old and ridoculously overused ad hominem argument: he got one thing wrong therefore everything he says is wrong. The fact that I did not know "right to work" laws is hardly grounds to deny all of my arguments. In fact you could easily remove that part of my comment and nothing is changed: my arguments are VAGUELY related to the exact stipulations of right to work states.

I will succintly state, as I have multiple times, my primary argument.

I agree with Zizek that capitalism has created a de facto slave class in 3rd world countries. It is my view that instead of choosing far right wing politics which seek to remove the impact of the state, I believe it is on the contrary the goal of popular politics to take hold of state power and use it to keep convdntrated power (capital) in check. In other words, those who seek to operate "at a distance"from the state are only allowing the capitalist interests to gain more hold over the state and use it to serve the very few. This is why I think a new discussion and an entire re-structuring of state power (I dont know what structure) needs to take place and should probably happen through majority upheavel.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-15 17:25:24

Yep.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-15 17:17:02

> There are however fewer and weaker Unions in Texas, and it is directly due to these laws.

You mean laws that give individuals the freedom of choice to belong to a union or not? Rather than being forced to belong to a union should they not want to?

Are you against people having the choice? Have you considered the potential negative effects of unions?

> This was ancillary to my argument but...

If you 1) can't get such basic, and easily verifiable facts correct and 2) so fundamentally don't understand what "right to work" laws are, why do you think any of your related claims are any more accurate?

> Would you like to engage my argument?

I'm not sure what to engage with. Reading your posts above you are kind of all over the place, everything from Madison to Monopsony....

I don't particularly feel like parsing through it all to find particular arguments, especially when you've already said that the fact that unions exist where you said the didn't and couldn't isn't actually relevant to your position - despite the fact it seemed a key point to your argument above. I don't want to waste time responding to other points you've made, only to have you claim that they too aren't relevant.

But, if you want to succinctly state your argument, I'll consider if a response is worthwhile.

Posted by simplethinking on 2015-09-15 16:26:07

Did you have anything pertinent to say? Or did you just want to provide a one off fact check?

Would you like to engage my argument?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-15 15:54:07

Can you explain?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-15 14:37:52

Thanks for the info. I was incorrect. There are however fewer and weakerUnions in Texas, and it is directly due to theselaws.

It's certainly true that Texashas boasted some of the best job growth, but that's a fairly simple cause and effect: employers flock where there are fewer regulations and weaker unions to fight against.

This was ancillary to my argument but thanks for the clarification.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-15 14:36:27

>Texas is a "right to work state" meaning I am not allowed to join a union because unions aren't allowed to exist.

"Texas is a right-to-work state. This means that under the Texas Labor Code, a person cannot be denied employment because of membership or non-membership in a labor union or other labor organization. Tex. Labor Code Ann. §§ 101.001, et al.

Texas laws protect employees from threats, force, intimidation, or coercion for choosing to either participate or not participate in a union. In other words, the choice of whether to join a labor union is yours; you may not be required to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment, nor may you be denied employment because you have joined a union."

Posted by simplethinking on 2015-09-15 11:00:40

Yep.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-15 08:16:11

Hard to know what to make of this piece - in many ways standard Zizek, several perceptive insights, surrounded by lots of tangential rambling, and an incoherent conclusion. .If I can paraphrase Jame Burnham, a case of Style vs Science. Then we get the bog-standard "anti-imperialist" tropes: Libya would be peaceful and happy if we'd just left that nice Col. Gadaffi in charge; the humanitarian crisis in Syria is caused by Saudi Arabia arming the opposition, not by kindly Dr Asad bombing the hell out of anyone who says boo to him.What is new (and highly unpleasant) is the outpouring of European nativism. He complains that refugees are "enigmatically utopian" in the "impossible demand" that they might be allowed go to a country that is at least vaguely welcoming and can offer some prospects of finding a livelihood (he seems to think that refugees are good for nothing other than low skill manual jobs - presumably even the university graduates, engineers and doctors among them). Then he calls for us to embrace the "Utopia" of communism. So its Utopia for the comfortable European intelligentsia, but harsh realism for the uppity refugees who disturb our tranquility.In our Times would have been better sticking with its banner of Liberty and Justice for All, rather than channeling this bile, just because it flows from a celebrity pen.

Posted by Tettodoro on 2015-09-15 06:44:49

... not such an "Utopia", imo!

... if the level of our Consciousness rises, by peeling away the layers of "Ego-Conditioning", (via meditation and spiritual tools made available), we can start to understand the connection between all the domains in life, the processes of our personal, emotional, physical, mental, spiritual "identity", and how to proceed: the path becomes clearer and simpler, (though we should never underestimate the task at hand)... ... i believe it can be done, only if we cooperate on a fundamental level: the climate for that is ripening, the signs are everywhere and they are connecting, but they are still scattered, because our society is manipulative, in denial, power-lusting and creates conflict to keep us from the obvious...

I could name a lot of interesting links, but have to refer to my facebook-page... in the documentary "Blessed Unrest" we can get an idea of all the positive initiatives already manifesting: https://www.google.be/url?sa=t...

do not forget to meditate :) <3

Posted by Djuna Van der Borgt on 2015-09-15 06:44:10

The Nordic Countries and Germany outperform the USA on ALL the indexes of Human

Happiness and Development.

The USA has 32.2% child poverty. That's one in three (!!!!) of the children of American plutocratic oligarchy who live in poverty.

The Land of the Fees and the Home of the Slaves loves guns and equate the NRA ultra-nationalist military cult of death with "liberty" (from basic logic and normal biological life??). Americans hate "their fellow Americans" and feel the compulsive need to shoot them and to deny them basic medicine.

Americans love death, violence and guns. Hate health and Life. That's the very definition of Evil.

Posted by glennwire on 2015-09-15 05:04:24

Meanwhile SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC Sweden has a crime and recidivist rate so low that they are *closing* their prisons.

I'l give you a perfect example. Mexico owns its own oil production. The people get zero benefit from this, but the ruling class does. But production has been falling and costs climbing. A gallon of gas in Mexico costs notably more than in the US because no one else is allowed to sell the gas. They are being forced to sell Pemex because the writing is on the wall. Lack of investment in technology has meant that the only way to get more oil profitably is to get PRIVATE companies to do it. And the only reason they are doing it is that the political class doesn't make money anymore because their public company is failing dramatically.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-14 19:53:59

I asked you a question: do your religious values square with your capitalist ones?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-14 19:27:27

YAWN!

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-14 19:18:32

"The problem with unregulated capitalism is that the only way it can really achieve its goals is through the externalisation of many of its costs by commoditising the environment and the commons."

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-14 19:07:46

Interesting exchange and kudos to both of you for keeping it civil. I did not get the impression that Burquez is advocating communism which is not quite the same as socialism (Canada is regarded as a socialist leaning democratic country along with Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Belgium, Netherlands, Finland to name but a few). The problem with unregulated capitalism is that the only way it can really achieve its goals is through the externalisation of many of its costs by commoditising the environment and the commons. Everything (including people) become "resources". The system is also deeply flawed because it does not account for this in financial terms so it is simply ignored. Think of the extraction of bitumen oil through tar sands. It is only really viable if the oil price is around US$100 per barrel. If a financial value could be applied to the full environmental impact of this method of oil production, some argue it would need to be close to double this price. These unaccounted for costs are borne by other people and the environment.

It is a myth that all slaves were badly treated. Slave owners paid good money for their slaves and regarded them as assets. A relatively 'happy', healthy slave was the foundation on which the wealth in the US was built. A slave owner had to feed, house and clothe his slaves. He also had to look after their children and the elderly when they could no longer work. The same can hardly be said about the modern employee earning a minimum wage from which they have to feed, clothe, house and transport themselves as well as care for their children (and themselves in their old age). Some would argue that a slave belonging to a wealthy landowner was better treated.

Capitalism does not care for the majority of people. In fact it is only through the exploitation of the many that the few can get rich. Only a person of limited insight can argue that people "always have choices". When there were 2 billion of us, perhaps, but there are now 7.2 billion of us and there simply are no longer the available natural resources or opportunities for every single person to enjoy even a modest middle class standard of living. The research shows that we would now need at least 3 earths in order for this to be possible. It is only the privileged who have never walked in those shoes that still have the arrogance to say this. The choices for many people in this world is back breaking, poorly paid work or starvation. Not much of a choice ...

Besides, if capitalism does result in more freedom, why does the "leader of the free world and the center of the market economy have the largest prison population in the world?http://thinkprogress.org/justi...

Posted by Bradley Bergh on 2015-09-14 16:00:46

excellent article, very clearly and rationally presented. the solutions may be difficult but as you say we have to try otherwise we are lost and will deserve to be

"The idea that the primary problem is the ‘flow’ of migrants into Europe, that Europe is experiencing a migration crisis, rather than the far more accurate reversal: migrants are experiencing a European crisis, one of fences and fascists and cops. The baffling notion that a lack of sexist, racist, or religious violence is somehow a fundamental part of European life, that these things only exist in the global South, and will be carried, plague-like, by its former inhabitants. The sudden and unexplained invocation of the Islamic veil as the master-signifier of non-European otherness: when hundreds are drowning in the Mediterranean, and thousands more are imprisoned in dehumanising refugee camps, is their expression of religiosity really the most pressing issue? Žižek’s essay seems to be as uninformed by bare facts as it is by theory: a vast portion of the migrants reaching Europe are Syrian, from a middle-income country with a long history of secularism and communal co-existence; the takfiri ideology that is currently running rampage in the region is a foreign import, as are most of the takfiri fighters themselves. Many of the refugees that can afford to make it to Europe are from the Syrian petit-bourgeoisie; if we really do believe that class is a more crucial determining factor than nationality, we should at least be open to the idea that their ‘values’ and ways of life will not be too different from those of bourgeois Europe."

"It’s even possible to argue that the migrants are more European than Europe itself. Žižek mocks the utopian desire for a Norway that doesn’t exist, and insists that migrants should stay where they’re sent. (It doesn’t seem to occur to him that those trying to reach a certain country might have family members already there, or be able to speak the language, that it’s driven precisely by a desire to integrate. But also – isn’t this precisely the operation of the objet petit a? What kind of Lacanian tells someone that they should effectively abandon their desire for something just because it’s not attainable? Or are migrants not worthy of the luxury of an unconscious mind?) In Calais, migrants trying to reach the United Kingdom protested against their conditions with placards demanding ‘freedom of movement for all.’ Unlike racial or gender equality, the free movement of peoples across national borders is a supposedly universal European value that has actually been implemented – but, of course, only for Europeans. These protesters put the lie to any claim on the part of Europe to be upholding universal values. Žižek can only articulate the European ‘way of life’ in terms of vague and transcendent generalities, but here it is in living flesh. If the challenge of migration is one of European universalism against backwards and repressive particularism, then the particularism is entirely on the part of Europe."

Final point: the key "move"or "displacement" of an ideology IS TO SAY "this is not an ideology."

And whats more, and this is why I envoke Christ, do your capitalist values jive with your religous ones?

I doubt it.

Good talk, good day. Comeback again so I can chop your "logic" down to its pathetic core: the fantasy of individualism.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-13 20:20:48

Every human is always already within an ideology: i already exposed the mytth of your "free market" ideology. Indeed you treat the "invisible hand" as if it were God. Well as I showed time and again 1) the free market has never existed and 2) if it did we know exactly what would happen: ruthless accumulation into the hands of the few.

I dont deny that Communism too is an ideology, but I prefer believing in the possibility of more human equality above self interest. Interesting thatmoth Cheistians today are far right, ego driven, profit driven.

"You cannot serve both money and God" Jesus Christ

Intersting that most modern American Christians serve money which is their God.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 17:03:21

A new discussion about the "commons," ie that which concerns all of us: national lands, important reasources, and especially intellectual property. A new designation for these issues, and mostimportaltly: a new way of deciding who gets to make these decisions.

One option of course is that NOBODY "own" the main public lands and resources, that it remain open to all for use within a regulated system. In my opinion this would require a vasy re structuring, a new formof democratic decision making. For instance if weasked EVERY human what to do with with the arctic? I have almost no doubt the answer would be "leave it alone, let it remain an open area for all to enjoy and none to exploit."

This is vague, of course, because a new "order" would only be possible or even forseeable through a new opening.

Theres just no way Im smart enough or any single person is smart enough to sketch out an entire new society. My point is that we need to erase the current system and the options willopen up. I have no clue what could come next, i would simply hope for an entirely new way of doing things that involves far more than 300 people making decisions in a closedroom (cough TPP agreement).

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 16:52:04

So what is your option? You keep ducking the issue.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 16:06:21

That's why libertarianism and freedom trumps ideology. You guys want to go to war to force your beliefs on others, while we prefer a referee system that allows no one to commit violence (or slavery) against another. But you don't want that, you want control and the ability to oppress anyone who disagrees with you.

In your world, you would deny people jobs because you dont think they pay enough. So you prefer them to starve back home. But Mexicans are great, because they aren't weak like Americans. Give them a chance and they will create their own business. They will wash cars or care for the elderly or open a taco stand if that makes more money. They do have bargaining power and that is competition. Don't pay them well as a laboror? They will cut you out and go direct to the customer.

You are brainwashed, my friend, and prefer to have poverty as a problem than to solve it, prefer to have people unemployed than employed at a wage you don't like. Prefer people to starve to death rather than eat foods you don't approve.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 15:35:39

There are only two types of people. Those who embrace their own value. And fools.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 14:59:21

I didn't say it was necessary, I said revolutions are usually brutal. That's simple because some people will fight for one side and others will disagree.

As for "negotiating" with my employer: Texas is a "right to work state" meaning I am not allowed to join a union because unions aren't allowed to exist. I cannot fight a huge employer myself, I would simply be crushed and fired immedietely. But my situation is not so precarious, I am middle class. What I'm really worries about and what I find ridiculous is that the very poor immigrants, precarious workers who in fact HAVE NO negotiating power. They willsimply import other workers or deport them. They have no bargaining power, they are constrained by forces too large for them to fight.

Ive been saying this the entire conversation. Your whole "well just find another job!" doesnt apply to 80% of the worlds population, ie India China Mexico North Africa blah blah the list goes on. You act like jobs are just AVAILABLE to every one. No dude you livein upper middle class America which is not the whole world (shocking I know). Pick up a book every now and then, try Giorgio Agamben: Homo Sacer. It basically depicts exactly what I'm talking about: the precarious non-working class who live in shantie towns in South America, North Africa, etc who are universially excluded from even the oppurtunity of citizenship.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 14:30:51

Ah, okay, so in order to improve people's lives, you first must kill them.

And tell people that negotiating your salary with an employer is "slavery".

It's great when you can just rationalize propaganda and murder. New communists, same as the old communists. Murder, death, misery. But as a leader, I'm sure you'll do better than the other "equal" people.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 14:10:48

Capitalism is about channelling wealth. Capital, accumulated money, is a proxy for energy but that is another thread. If your only source of money is your labor, even if "freely sold" then you are labor within a capitalist system, but that doesn't make you a capitalist.

Posted by Matthew Rapaport on 2015-09-12 14:05:11

Revolution must occur first and revolution is almost always brutal. I cant have my cake and eat it too. From the US revolution to the Haitain revolt to the Paris commune to 1919 Russia: it was all ugly but some form of human emancipation was the goal.

After all didn't the British make the same arguments? "Those are OUR investments in the Americas, we OWN them." In other words, isn't the word "stealing" relative to which side of history your on?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 13:56:15

Describe to me an alternative system that doesn't involve theft and murder.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 13:43:29

How am i cherrypicking? I chose a direct statement from Madison HIMSELF regarding what he thought SPECIFICALLY about what the Constitution should say and what the new government shouldlook like. You in fact or entirely off base making up references to "all minorities" when the only minority he mentions is the minority of the opulent.

My comments are in fact 100% on point and 100% relevant: I cited THE PRIMARY constructor of the constitution and his thoughts on that constitution. Where does he mentin other minorities? In fact he mentions the English working class as those who the rich should protect against.

Point being, you clearly would like to delude yourself into believing Madison had in mind some "egalitarian" project. No, he clearly states he wants the rich to rule, why are you eliding around that very simple fact?

Fact is, you are an elitist and there's notjing particularly wrong about it: just own up to it and quit with all the weak counter arguments "but but capitalism is FOR ALL PEOPL! BUT BUt madison wanted rights for EVERYONE!". No thats a load of crap and everuone knows it. Just state simply: you want the more "talented"more "apt" more "accomplised" capitalistto run the society and thays exactly what you have today.

My opininion is of course on the contrary: the rich have failed again and again and as Chomsky said "what to do when elites fail? Get rid of em."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 13:28:09

I didn't say he didn't mean it, but you're just like the "black lives matter" people. You cherry pick and try to say this matters or that matters. In context, he was saying everyone matters, all minorities matter, even wealthy, privileged ones and the Constitution even protects them against mobs with pitchforks.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 13:10:59

Yep.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 13:09:23

Okay, how many of them are there? Now compare that to the war on drugs or any communist society.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 12:05:34

oh and should we forget the corpses produced by American capitalism? After all what do you REALLY think was the purpose of the war in Iraq? Surely not capitalist gains that were acquired COINCIDENTLY by American companies?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 11:49:10

Yeesh how many times have I heard this weak "well but he DIDNT MEAN THAT!" Yes he did mean exactly what he said. Notice he doesnt mention the minority of slaves or poor whites or spaniards or Polish immigrants. He mentions EXPLICITLY: the minority of the opulent aka the rich elite. You seem to be adding some imaginary designation that his minority means all minorities. I'm sorry but this is whay Madison said explixitly: the minority of the opulent.

I have twisted no facts and missed no "context.". The context was just as HE stated: he was afraid of what was happening in England, namely that the people would rise against their rich land owners.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 11:44:20

Are you sure that history is finished with Communism? Then why is Bernie Sanders gaining steam and why are you commenting on an article written by a Communist (who happens to be very popular among European and American intelectuals and is even on Netflix)?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 11:40:16

You took them out of context and twisted the meaning substantially. He was simply reassuring people that democracy doesn't mean two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. That all minorities were to be protected, even the minority who have more stuff.

But of course, you're too biased to even understand the basics. In fact, Hamilton, who is often adored by the left, was the one that demanded a federal banking system, which Jefferson said would just be a money printing machine of terror for the rich, and also wanted permanent offices with titles for the upper classes. These things were turned down by the very people what would benefit from them.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 11:36:36

And exactly how does "new age commnunism" work? I think it's hilarious that you seem to think that you need to kill people to liberate them. AWESOME!!! Communism freed 100,000,000 people to death. Much freedom. Very liberty.

History is pretty much finished when it comes to communism. It's a failure, we all know it's a failure and the best you have left is to suck off of capitalism like a huge parasite.

But I have a better idea. We take the US back to the Constitution which is designed to protect capitalism and freedom and open up the borders and then see how well your "new age communism" works in another country and how many people want to live under it and how long it lasts without having to murder people.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 11:29:03

Im sure those people wouldve gladly moved to the US and many of them did. I won't ignore that (I wouldnt describe myself as a socialist more of a new age communist but whatever) the affects of the Russian wxperiment were devestating. That is part of the Left's legacy and I fully accept that when you fight for human emancipation sometimes you mustgo to war.

You act though as if history IS FINISHED. I assure you it is not, it is open and there are oppurtunities for the majority to change things and that time is sooner rather than later.

As for your investment argument: its clap trap and you know it. Nobody but wall streek benefits fromwall street, the growing wealth gap will tell you that.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 10:16:46

Well, it is divided by people that invest in it. But the stock market is basically a bank. It is a way of getting money back into the market and to support companies that have strong support from the people and for taking support from those who dont.

The funny thing about socialists, is that they get infuriated by side affects of freedom, like some people making more money than others, but don't get at all infuriated by the side effects of socialism, which is some people making more money than others, plus a lot of people in jail and millions upon millions murdered. Pretty sure there are 100,000,000 dead people that would have done anything to live in a "corrupt" capitalistic society.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-12 09:45:38

The wealth of the stock market is divided up? In what unicorn universe do you live in?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 09:35:59

Simplistic and stupid

Syria, Libya, Iraq, the Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia all have internal political conflicts due to their social and ethnic structure. It's simplistic to the point of racist to claim that it's just "imperialism" and all these conflicts are proxy wars

Also it seems that Slavoj is nostalgic for the glory days of the dictatorships - when murderers in expensive suits like Assad, Hussein, Gaddafi, Bokassa, Nimery and Siad Barre ruled with an iron fist and suppressed internal conflicts with the secret police torture chamber, the police officer's nightstick and the soldier's rifle butt. Irony - these conflicts are so intense now because they were suppressed for so long.

Also he casually supports racist repression of refugees and immigrants - I guess he wants to Keep Europe White too, just like the other bigots over there

Posted by gregoryabutler on 2015-09-12 09:32:40

How did i "smear" the founding "fathers"? Oh you mean WITH HIS OWN WORDS!??? Yes, if that's what you mean by smearing then I am definitely smearing Madison using his own elitist rhetoric. What are these people Gods to you or something? I have no problem looking directly at what they said and their EXPLICIT goals for this countey and analyzing them. It seems fair that I would at least INVESTIGATE the men who claim to be so noble and look at what their stated purpose was

That is clear: Madison wanted a government which first and foremost protected the "rights" of wealthy landowners against the majority. And shock and awe, THAT IS WHAT WE GOT! Essentially the founding fathers were oligarch capitalists who sought to maintain their eliteclass over the majority. I mean look at the quote man its all in there.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 09:14:20

I never said tarrifs were evil nor did I even disagree with their usage. In fact, I never made an argument for or against tarrifs. I was simply responding to your ridiculous and 100% false notion that the US was a pure market economy before 1900 with no government intervention.

In fact you're quite right that tarrifs play an invaluable role in effectively protecting the interests of a developing nation. Hence my basic questioning of your "free market" BS principles when applied to current nations.

So let's return to the Mexican Immigrant: IN THE EXACT SAME WAY that the US needed tarrifs to compete against England's advanced economy, so does the Mexican economy need tarrifs to compete against subsidized advanced US economy. But has this happened? No, as I stated before NAFTA has removed any of those tarrifs which allow a burgeoning nation to grow. Thus, we see Mexico in the dumps today, just as they were about to become a full on 1st world nation.

What's my point? You're blind to the 100% factual assertion that the US needed tarrifs and heavy protection to develop and in your blindess you claim other less deceloped counties today need to respect "the free market without government intervention."

So which ax am i trying to grind? My basic assertion, to break in down in political groups, is that

1) both moderate conservatives and moderate liberals are the ideological enemy. They want things to "continue as they are," with the government controlling parts of the economy and capitalist efficiency still basically the goal.

2) The far right wingers (i guess some of them you migh call populist or grass root conservatives) have it right: the goverment has fartoo much power economically. Where these conservatives get it WRONG, IMO, is that they want to abolish the state in favor of "pure capitalism." My argument is that the state is here to stay, and if we try to"distance ourselves" from the state we will be ignoring the most powerful fulcrum or tool available. In other words, yes the state is screwing things up, so let's totally rebluild it so that it is the majority who control it not the minority.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-12 08:56:18

Why should we concern ourselves about the refugees? Let Iran and Russia take them. They're the ones who destabilized Syria by backing Assad. As for any of this being a US problem, why should the American people b e punished for the mistakes and leftist ideology of Barack Obama and Hillary clinton? It was they who converted a newly-stabilized Iraq into an ISIS hellhole and removed the government of Libya.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2015-09-12 08:20:48

And, BTW, in your attempt to smear the Founding Fathers, you missed the part where Thomas Jefferson, in addition to fighting the federal banking system as unconstitutional, made the Louisiana Purchase using that evil tariff money and then divided up the land and sold it to people at super cheap prices so that common people would have the ability to own land and become capitalists, and this helped create the most powerful country on the planet almost overnight.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 23:01:10

Oh, please. Marx got 100,000,000 people killed. And you think no one else would have come up with E=MC2? That's rudimentary stuff. Saying cool stuff is nothing compared to creating computing systems.

The stock market has huge value because it joins people who have money to create jobs and product but don't know how to do it and peole who have ideas for jobs and product and need money. Trading stock is a byproduct of this. It shifts around ownership and capital in an efficient way to properly reward or punish companies based on performance in the market. The ability to make money in the stock market incentives investment, which creates jobs and wealth. That wealth is then divided up.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 22:54:31

""What's the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of one?"

Sure, call it theft I dont care I would have no problem stealing from the filthy rich. Why would I? As for Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan: one of them played computer games and the other played basketball. Its actually a pretty obvious fact that Steve Jobs the capitalist's "messiah" was just a place holder. So he invented the touch screen 5 years before someone else would've, huge deal!! He deserved to be as rich as the country of Uzbekistan!

No, in fact true creative genius like Einstein, Kant, Jesus Christ, Marx, The Budda, Confuscious, these men were truly innovative and they left a realmark on humanity. Steve jobs? Couldve been bill gates or vice versa nobody cares. It was a group who invented these things, these men stood on the shoulfers of thousands of years of discovery and judt bc they were the last in line we need to reward them? Pshhh

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 22:06:29

I see very little accuracy in your interpretation of Madison's full quote. In fact, what Madison clearly seeks is an IMBALANCE which favors the "landed interest" aka the minority of the opulent. Also, does the House of Represenatives represent the majority interest? No, it represents Upper Class interests. Point being, Madison clearly was just another privelaged a hole who wanted to make sure he and his buddies didn't lose their land.

Frankly I'm not some religious zealot who believes in the awe-inspiring power of a document written 300 years ago, especially when that document was written by a bunch of rich landowners who EXPLICITLY are trying to keep the masses at bay. Look at the quote about England for Christ's sake, this is the key quote: "In England, in this day, if elections WERE OPEN to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure.". HA! are you kidding me? Does this sound like someone promoting ANYTHING CLOSE to democracy? Let mebreak this down for you, and it doesnt take a genius (in fact it takes a total nit wit not to get this) understand what he's saying: "Let us do, the land owners, do the rule making. The plebians will run amuck and we need to protect our vested interst. No this is an authoritarian capitalist writing a document to serve his and his classes interest. If you cannot see that then you must have some thick glasses.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 22:00:02

Well, look, communism as a philosophy isn't that bad. If people want to give it a whirl, they should. The problem is, it's doomed to fail. Even if you have 1000 equally motivated egalitarians, once they have children, it all goes out the window. So that's why there was never a transition to governmentless, free communism with happy participants. Only robots could be happy in a communistic system.

Everyone always says we need to reimagine capitalism, yet no one every comes out with a proposal that differs conceptually from the fascist mess we have. Just "steal more money, nationalize more stuff and make more laws".

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 21:40:11

Full quote - "The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, — when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability."

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 21:29:16

So you believe in theft. That when people create and are rewarded for it, that someone else should be able to take it. That Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan should be paid some sort of minimum wage and still be expected to be absolutely exceptional.

You know when that has worked? Never.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 21:24:22

The problem with Communism-detractors that none of them really read the foundational documents of Communism. The foundational document comes from Marx and Engels, but then it d/evolved into Leninism, Maosim, Trotskysm, etc. However, original Marx predicted an inevitable transition to communism precipitated by a revolution. The many of contentions here are: what is inevitable? what is revolution? Inevitable could be simply what Zizek points out -- inhospitability of vast areas of the planet -- people will spill over into the habitable areas. He mentions SubSaharan Africa. We might be adding California, Southwest US, entire US Eastern and Southern Seaboard (rise of sea levels) to that list sooner than later-- who absorbs all those people and in what socioeconomic way? (Can you hear Nebraskans bitching about Arizonans about "stealing their jobs and resources" after the initial outpour of 9/11-like national unity?) Do we replicate all of our strip malls further inland, continue with happy motoring economy and capitalism, and eventually come knocking onto Canadian door? Do we replicate the elite system -- many working for the few in pursuit of constant surplus? Surplus of/from what and for whom? Surplus at whose expense (capitalism is predicated on someone "winning" at expense of someone "losing")? Revolution doesn't mean (necessarily) rioting and street fighting (although there is always that -- eventually someone reaches for pitchforks, just ask Marie Antoinette)-- Marx wrote a great deal about revolutionary change. It first and foremost begins with learning and transformation -- revolution has to occur in our heads first, which is what Zizek alludes to -- we have to reconceptualize "capitalism" -- it is proving to not be a sustainable model of existence, at least not in the current form. It produces what Bauman called "waste" -- not material waste heading for landfills, but human waste -- billions of humans whom the capital(ism) cannot and will not absorb because they simply have no consumer (market) "value" of any sort (another thing that perhaps should be reconceptualized). We already have growing "waste" in the US, which climate change will force into a new definition.

Posted by os on 2015-09-11 21:13:59

Interesting mental gymnastics there... Let me give you a quick quote fromthe primary constructor of the constitution James Madison: the purposeof government is to "protect the minority of the opulent from the majority."

In other words, EVEN THE VERY FOUNNDERS of our constitution were already the rich businessmen. Who the heck do you think wanted these government intervention? The poor steel mill workers?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 20:23:05

If they can walk away from their job, they are not enslaved. Having a shitty job is not being a slave. And what is creating all the new wealth and progress in India? It sure as shit isn't its awful government.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 20:10:46

I didn't say they didn't use government intervention. You claimed that capitalism controlled the state. It really didn't. Not until the state tried to control business. Equal and opposite reaction. The moment a politician intends to coerce someone with money, the money comes out. It is simply a shakedown by evil politicians that then use the money to be reelected. You have cause and effect reversed.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 20:09:38

I forgot to mention India, the newest capitalist investment of the west. Do some more research: indeed manh of these people are enslaved.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 20:07:53

Slaves? They flock to these jobs. And they do so because it is FAR superior to when they were literally communist slaves who did bullshit labor at the end of a gun.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 20:05:38

Ohhh I see so now your argument dissapears: the one that says "before 1900 US economy did not use government intervention."

Free market fantasies, truly delusional. Get your factsstraight bud.

Who decided which government function is "legitimate"? Could it possibly be those who pay the most?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 20:04:58

Have you been to China? Dubai?

These are slaves. And they fit your definition to a tee. You seem to believe everyone lives in middleclass america. Sorry to inform you but global capitalism is GLOBAL lol.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 20:03:09

But that is a legitimate power of the Federal government. And it funded the government. This left the American people to be as capitalistic and as free as possible.

This isn't a defense of the practice, but it was a power given to government. What i'm talking about here is actual unconstitutional law that is used to prevent competition, business creation, etc, etc, and literally just hands tax money over to banks for self enrichment purposes. The laws that put limits on agricultural production. the laws that tells people how must they must pay. What they must do with what they create. Etc, etc. this creates crony capitalism, which is capitalism destroyed beyond recognition.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 20:01:27

You are actually 100% wrong and you need freshen upon both yourAmerican history and world economic history.

The US has imposes HEAVY tarrifs for the near entirety of its existence. In fact, the very function of tarrifs is what defines the seperation from England.

One such example (of endless) was the Tarrif of 1824 which was a protective tarrifs to allow burgeoning American markets to compete or "catch up" to the already streamlined industrial England. In other words, tarrifs have been used often to protect a national industry against a superior foreign one; to allow national markets to grow against the cheaper foreign imports.

This is a basic fact not only of economic theory but also of economic practice

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 19:56:44

You keep using the word "slave". I don't think it means what you think it means. If you can walk away from your job without being killed or beaten, you're not a slave to anyone.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 19:50:36

Exactly, WE should do something. And what we should do is fight against the ridiculous accumulation of capital which allows the very few to control the world. The whole system needs to be removed, from the government to the capitalist policies.

You talk about "freedom" but ignore the very clear consequences of massive capital accumulation: a new slave class.

Yes from day one. For instance, can you name me a single nation state that has not allowed for "crony capitalism"? I assure you, there HAS NEVER existed a capitlism that did not control the state.

Here's the problem I have with your argument: what do you propose we do with the state? Abolish it? No the fact is the state is a NECESSARY component of human freedom. Without some form of government intervention, well we would have The Congo.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 19:35:38

BTW, one of the great things about actually speaking spanish is that you can actually speak to Mexicans and actually learn something. Like when one told me "You know what your country's problem is? You give away something for nothing. If I don't work, I don't eat. So I WORK!!!" Productivity. It feeds people. It clothes people.

Capitalism is all about innovation and creation, it ends poverty. Everything else continues it. Social Security, by government stats, puts 6.5 million people into poverty every year. That is just the employee portion.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 19:35:23

Investment means people have increasing control. Aid means the government retains the control and pretty much steals most of the aid. I guess you love that when a dictator comes in and steals all the food and money instead of companies giving people jobs and creating wealth.

By "control assets", you mean to steal it from the people. How have any of the socialist regimes done for the people? In Mexico, the government took back the oil, and now the corruption has destroyed their ability to pump new oil, and the prices are more than in the US. So they have to go crying to private oil companies to ask them to bail them out. In Venezuela, they own the oil and people are starving. Let them drink gasoline?

If you don't like capitalism, feel free to move to Cuba and live your socialist dream. Just be forewarned that they are going capitalist now because it is that or starve. In the end, the choice is always between capitalism and starvation.

No, not from DAY ONE. On the first day, you asked government to control business. On day two, they hired lobbyists.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 19:25:28

Well, as long as the public is stupid enough to tell politicians to "do something", which means giving them unConstitutional powre, this is what you will have. So tough. You bring it upon yourself.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 19:24:41

So what? Reagan is evil or what? Free trade is a net gain. Some will no doubt lose if they were being protected by government. So what?

The problem isn't with corporations giving money to politicians, it is with us for letting those politicians break the Constitution. If I say that the Feds have no authority to stop immigrants from coming to the US, people say "oh but they must have it!" If I say that the Feds have no authority to tell a diner in Peoria what it must pay, people say "oh, but they must have it." At every turn, the people say that the government MUST have the power to regulate all of these things. And at every turn, they COMPLAIN that the people with more money fight back with their money to overturn these things or get the government to carve out exceptions or favors for them. YOU are the problem, because YOU empower government to create crony capitalism, which is just a form of socialism where the means of production is controlled and taxed, not directly owned.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 19:23:29

So now how do you respond to the very obvious fact which i pointed out: that the government, from DAY ONE, has been co-opted, used to gain influence by the capitalism you defend?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 18:53:12

So then, the key question for you is: how can you honestly say politicians aren't already bought by capitalist interests? Which means, of course, that indeed I can conflate "government action" with its driving force: "capitalist interest."

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 18:21:44

NAFTA was drafted and pushed initially by Ronald Reagan. Furthermore, who do you think pushed Clinton into signing NAFTA? Surely it couldnt have been the companies who give millions of dollars to win elections.

Newsflash bud: the current government has ALWAYS been co-opted by capitalist interests.

Quick question: why do huge corporations give hugeamounts to prospective politicians? Lol, if you are really so naive as to not know the answer, then I probably can't get through to you.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 18:12:05

There's a very simple and almost blatantly obvious reason for the preferenceof investment over foreign aid: investment means US control. As a matter of fact, there was a study done about US foreign interventions and it states explicitly: US foreign aid is STRICTLY correlative with increases in torture, and oppression within those regions by the ruling parties. Why would this happen?

It's simple: once a country decides it wants to control its own assets and land (ie Nicaragua, El Salvado, etc.) the US almost unilateraly stages a government take over and begins a war against the population. Thus, after and during the war, the US implants a puppet regime and meanwhile gives foreign "aid" to said regime. I can ggive you almost endless examples of this phenomenon.

To summarize: if you don't let the US invest in your country, they will take over your government and give you foreign "aid" for your suffering until you change your mind.

Please dude, do some research lol. Forbes.com is like ready offical stalinist literature in the USSR: OF COURSE THEYRE GONNA SAY THAT.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 17:56:23

You keep blaming private industry for government laws and regulations It is hard to debate someone in fantasy land. At the same time Mexico is becoming the car capital of the west.

You don't seem very fluent Señor No Problemo.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 17:44:55

And what does me speaking spanish have to do with anything? I am in fact a fluent Mexican-American from Texas, but that's erroneous.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 17:31:13

Not sure exactly what you're saying again. I gave a real world example and you seem convinced that Mexicans has ample "freedom" to create their own business. I rightly stated that NAFTA has in fact destroyed Mexican agriculture, which is of course created by elite un democratic contracts.

What "freedom" are you talking about? The freedom to negotiate your own tarrifs? Because Mexican farmers don't have that freedom as I clearly stated.

Point being you did not answer my very real world question: since Mexian farming has been destroyed via NAFTA's un democratic, top down approach which subsidized american farming, how does the newly unemployed mexican farmer have "more freedom" than his US counterpart? In other words, NAFTA created a very unbalanced market that helps, of course, US farming but damages mexican farming, and as such doesnt this mean that the mexican immigrant has less economic freedom?

You are being hysterical. Mexicans are much more entrepreneurial than Americans because it is easier to start a business. The more freedom the more options. You seem to favor fascism. Have you ever spoken Spanish outside of 7th grade?

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 17:05:18

But please do continue eluding to fantasy land for the basis of your real world arguments. And those arguments will continue to be digested and pooped out by me, please do continue.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 16:39:27

Point being, you cannot agree that there "are no free markets" and then turn around and claim the workers within those markets are free!

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 16:36:42

A mexican immigrant is free to start his own business? What if their country's economy has been dismanted by elite un-democratic "contracts" such as NAFTA that pit Mexican subsistsnce farming againsts heavily SUBSIDIZED superior American farming?

What should he do then in this "free market"? Oh wait we already agreed they don't exist. And if we agree free markets dont currently exist, then it clearly follows that the workers within thatmarket are therefore HEAVILY constrained by un-democratic, un-"free" market collusion. What, then, is this precarious worker to do?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 16:28:15

Yes, and they can choose not to work in a sweat shop or pick berries. They are free to start their own business.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 16:22:42

This is a nice argument you make: capitalism equals freedom and communism is stupid. This is just sheer brilliance.

Do the sweatshop workers "own" their own labor? Does a hired mexican laborer "own" his labor when he picks strawberries for 12 cents an hour?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 16:20:48

Nope. You're basically saying that freedom makes you a slave. It's ridiculous. It doesn't mean everything goes your way, but to suggest that being free to own your work makes you a slave but communism can save us is stupid.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 16:15:37

So slavery has nothing to do with something that doesn't exist? Brilliance.

The Holocaust has nothing to do with the "inner greatness" of Naziism.

The gulags have nothing to do with "real" communism.

These arguments are endless. Point being: Zizek would tell you that yes, the really existing communism cannot simply be "thought away," its inherent antagonisms and ugly truths any good Leftist must accept.

Similarly, as a capitalist, you should accept the reality of slavery as inherent to the concept of capitalism itself.

Otherwise, your comment is entirely a fantasy.

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 16:09:22

The theoretical ones.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 15:37:23

The Danish people's party has not passed the Socail Democrats. In fact the Social Democrats became the biggest party in Denmark at the general elections earlier this year. However, the Sweden Democrats are now shown as the biggest party in certain polls in Sweden.

Posted by George on 2015-09-11 15:09:19

Which "free markets" are you referring to?

Posted by Bueno Devine Burquez on 2015-09-11 13:40:49

The only reason Norway is rich is the same as the reason Near Eastern despotic monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are rich: oil.

The only reason it is not such a despotic society as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even though it is also a monarchy like those two, is because it is in Europe.

So stop that parrotting that simplistic brainwashed propaganda and go somewhere else to play by wallowing in the mud, eh!

Posted by Serbian-Canadian of ChinaMacau on 2015-09-11 11:33:45

Again it isn't the economic system per se but the participating individuals who care only about increasing their own wealth. Large scale poverty reduction requires much up front capital investment which reduces short term profits not just for a few years but for a generation or more!

Posted by Matthew Rapaport on 2015-09-11 11:02:57

Socialism is the idea that everyone should give up ownership of their labor, but the ironic thing is that the very last people to do so, the ones that never do, are the ones trying to convince YOU to give up YOUR rights to your labor. Fidel Castro, for example. Any socialist leader. They profit from your foolishness in giving up your capitalism. They turn you into a voluntary slave. And then, suddenly, it's involuntary. And they live a life of luxury. It has always been the same, there is no variation on this theme. No communist leader living a life of poverty like the others.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 11:00:54

Incorrect, which is why socialists simply can't understand capitalism. It is simply the idea that you own the effort of your work and have the ability to sell it to whomever you like. You get to decide how you allocate that money, not government, not other people.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 10:58:29

Technically I think you don't become a capitalist until you start your own company or take some of that money you earned with labor and invest it in someone else's business :)

Posted by Matthew Rapaport on 2015-09-11 10:54:18

Capitalism is freedom.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 09:59:42

There is no rest 'us', should every soul desiring freedom suicide, only the living dead would reamin.

Posted by Mike on 2015-09-11 09:48:44

Capitalism favors those who work. It doesn't do anything for lazy people, not directly. Indirectly, you have things like cars and cell phones and $400 flat HDTVs that last 20 years.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 09:19:29

It doesn't need to be "concerned" because fighting world poverty is a NATURAL effect of capitalism, something government has never been able to accomplish. Just look at any communist country. A socialist country these days is just a country that realizes that without capitalism, it is doomed to collapse, so it eventually becomes a national socialist parasite, clinging desparately to capitalism as its host.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 09:17:58

Neither. Slavery has nothing to do with free markets. It is in fact, government run and protected tyranny.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 09:15:37

Okay, well, I suggest suicide. Clear up space for the rest of us.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-11 09:14:34

We're it communists who brought African people to work on plantations in America as slaves OR was it the forerunners of todays free market fundamentalist?

Posted by Junis on 2015-09-11 08:46:39

Capitalists are in denial about the evil side effects of their system. While it can produce great wealth for a few it is unconcerned in fighting poverty.

Posted by Junis on 2015-09-11 08:41:06

Is Norway a member of Nato? If she is, she is automatically involved in the bombing of middle eastern counties. Capitalism primarily favors the economic advancement of white counties and norways extreme wealth is proof of it.

Posted by Junis on 2015-09-11 08:35:35

In capitalism everyone is also a slave, only they have the illusion of freedom.

Posted by Mike on 2015-09-11 07:59:21

This is THE BEST reading I had for long time. I myself also related ALL BIG PROBLEMS to the modern twisted capitalism. Why do we have to have the same families ruling money supplies and lobbying politicians? There should be a limit set for how long corporations could exist - WTF seriously, is humanity gonna have HP, GM, Philip Morris, Nestle, Shell etc. FOREVER and ever? Why? Just because they started their business in the right time, when technological development allowed it? When centralized banking systems were invented? If we cannot set limits on existence of such huge global corporations, then we should just fcuking bomb them to the ground and bring an end to all wars, poverty, income inequality, political influence, spinning via media etc.

Posted by RamiHu12 on 2015-09-11 07:21:31

The correction is not totally correct. The Social-Democrats are again the biggest parti in Denmark with 26,3% of the votes. The "anti-immigrant" parti (Dansk Folkeparti) is however in second place with 21,1%, making them the biggest parti on the right-wing, and thereby even bigger than the parti of the prime minister (Venstre), which is a first.

Posted by AdMJ on 2015-09-11 05:06:36

It's rather interesting that people will risk everything and anything to get even a taste of capitalism. You look down on them and think "look, they are being used!" They, however, will risk everything to get someone to employ them, because they want money and the ability to plug into the capitalist economy, fleeing their sub poverty existence elsewhere for a chance at living in a capitalist world. Even Bono of U2, an outspoken socialist for decades realized that capitalism is the savior of the poor. Because he experienced it first hand. He saw people using their talents to make money and invest in their own businesses, education, families. The only option to capitalism is REAL slavery, as in Cuba, the USSR, North Korea, Viet Nam. If socialists would stop trying to suck off of capitalism and destroy its wealth creation, we could have an incredibly rich and successful world with peace and trade. It is the envious socialists and anti-capitalists that plunge the world into violence and despair and force real slavery on others.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-10 23:48:45

Yes, but funny how when capitalists show up, every one rushes to come and work for them. Because you know why? They are also capitalists. Everyone is a capitalist. There are no true socialists.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-10 23:41:49

There is no post capitalism. It will never happen, because the alternative is utterly unsustainable.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-10 23:40:18

In communism, everyone is a slave. The irony of people that think that being paid for your labor is slavery, but getting paid in toilet paper and razors is not.

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-10 23:39:30

"philosopher and psychoanalyst"

Well, obviously. Certainly not an economist or anyone with math or reasoning skills. Why do people who know absolutely nothing about anything insist on writing articles as if they do?

Posted by John Ash on 2015-09-10 23:28:22

Ah, but Norway exists, verily it does. I spent 11 months there and any pseudo-ontological arguments viz. Norway's non-existence are an a priori failed calambour.

Neither does Norway have anything to do with the fact that people in other countries inhabit failed societies. Altruism is not compulsory and yet the social-democratic (and certainly NOT communist!) Norway is doing more than its fair share for other, undeserving nations.

Communism being a de facto state capitalism was a horrible experience and good riddance to it. As for the refugees -- and mixed with them economic migrants from Pakistan and other countries which do not experience civil war -- they may expect whatever they choose, but the granting of the rights expected by them should be left to sovereign states.

The silly charade of Fortress EU should be abolished a.s.a.p., the Euro scraped, and Westphalian order re-established with mere economic cooperation like EFTA and EEC in the 1970s, nothing more than that. Of course military alliances -- to wit NATO first and foremost -- should be not only discontinued but a future formation of anything remotely alike banned by the UN.

Posted by Serbian-Canadian of ChinaMacau on 2015-09-10 20:12:52

This article is so wrong on so many levels. First, it assumes that one cannot be pro open borders AND at the same time, oppose the imperialist and neocolonialist policies Europe has imposed to Africa and ME countries from where this refugees come from. Second, it panders with the absurd idea of actually protecting the "life style" of European masses...another way to say "hey, we care about you and racist bullshit". Now that is some real hypocrisy, specially coming from somebody who comes from the left. European life style, starting with its famed welfare state, is based precisely on fucking on with this third world countries and it is precisely the excuse the xenophobes and right wingers need to justify keeping immigrants outdoors, even drowning while they have a picnic in the beach. Fuck this article, and fuck Zizek "left wing" politics.

Posted by Sergio Méndez on 2015-09-10 19:53:55

Egypt is an African country, and it is in the Middle East.

Posted by Prethul on 2015-09-10 15:52:13

Hear, hear.

Posted by Sam on 2015-09-10 14:32:09

I agree with about 90% of this but he does fail to recognise other forces at play. First it isn't capitalism simplicter that is the problem. He points out that peoples have been fighting and migrating and fighting again for thousands of years. The ethnic bigotry in central Africa are real, capitalists just take advantage of it! So it isn't capitalism but capitalists without a moral compass and that is another story. Second he fails to mention how sheer global population numbers contribute to the problem no matter what the economic system involved.

Posted by Matthew Rapaport on 2015-09-10 10:58:19

Were**

Posted by JD Garcia Olaya on 2015-09-10 09:35:51

Sverige demokraterna ... has become in the latest opinion surveys the most popular party in the country . sure they only where the third strongest party, but isn't that evidence enough that racism and the extreme right are becoming more accepted in Sweden and that large amounts of the working classes in the country side are supporting this ideas.. I as a huminatatian individual reject their values and ideas , but denying them is just silly and will not solve the problem

Posted by JD Garcia Olaya on 2015-09-10 09:35:01

He is probably confusing Sweden with Denmark. In Denmark, the Anti-immigrant party (Dansk Folkeparti) is now the second largest political party.

Posted by Mads Husted on 2015-09-10 08:15:50

Denial:)

Posted by klokker1 on 2015-09-10 07:42:16

True or false, they will eventually gain power. Bringing hundreds of thousands of immigrant doesn't help anyone or anything.

Posted by klokker1 on 2015-09-10 07:41:41

I find it weird Zizek still believes in this so-called Europe (which is the trade organization EU). And he doesn't mention USA's involvement in the Syria uprising. Otherwise an excellent article. The future doesn't look too bright right now, does it?

Posted by klokker1 on 2015-09-10 07:40:15

"(Even in Sweden, the anti-immigrant Democratic party for the first time overtook Social-Democrats and became the strongest party in the country.)" Eh, no?

Posted by SN on 2015-09-10 05:43:06

Well he is lucky that Slovenia is in the EU then. As he lives in London.

Posted by Milly Lilly on 2015-09-10 04:36:05

All part of the current political economic debate on confronting Global Capitalism. Suggest reading Post-Capitalism by Paul Mason

Posted by Tim on 2015-09-10 03:19:18

Here he uses communism as the horizon beyond capitalism, where even he can't exactly specify what institutional frameworks would constitute it. You're right in saying he's for forgetting the dramatic experiments of the 20th century but to reprise the emancipatory revolutionary gesture of them, to repeat them in another way for the 21st century. Why use that word? 1. the referred primordial gesture of rupture with the current order, 2. because it is meant to address the problems of the commons, (environmental, intelecutal, economic)

Posted by Mike on 2015-09-09 21:31:38

I think this will also call for new structures of adaptability both at the personal and systemic levels. You are basically dealing with the poorest bearing the brunt of the trauma of the dislocation, both in the past as shared forward through generationally passed on trauma, and the fresher trauma of the immigrant populations. This reactivity, and the ways in which it reinforces both the ideological myopia and the continuing conflicts, needs to be addressed and the underlying wounds need to be healed.

A great analysis. The only thing that shocked me, is the solutions advanced at the end. And he openned it up to ( Communism ) as a solution for the best of the world, which is weird from the part of Zizek, that had claimed, just some years ago, that ( Communism of the 20th century is over, and we have to forget it ). Does this crisis change everything ? Does it open the doorway to the end of capitalism ? ... I think that some serious pragmatic alternative has to be taken. The futur of humanity depends on that ...

Posted by Youssef Sbai Idrissi on 2015-09-09 16:38:02

Great reading, thank you Slavoj for clear, holistic summaries with firm advice and guidance towards improved experience of existence. A question regarding the following statement: "(Even in Sweden, the anti-immigrant Democratic party for the first time overtook Social-Democrats and became the strongest party in the country.)"Either there is a mix-up in reference to the country i.e. Sweden or sourcing to incorrect facts; resided in false, severly manipulated statistics.